Effect of vane twist on the performance of dome swirlers for gas turbine airblast atomizers

For advanced gas turbine engines, two combustor systems, the lean premixed/prevaporized (LPP) and the rich burn/quick quench/lean burn (RQL) offer great potential for reducing NO(x) emissions. An important consideration for either concept is the development of an advanced fuel injection system that will provide a stable, efficient, and very uniform combustion system over a wide operating range. High-shear airblast fuel injectors for gas turbine combustors have exhibited superior atomization and mixing compared with pressure-atomizing fuel injectors. This improved mixing has lowered NO(x) emissions and the pattern factor, and has enabled combustors to alternate fuels while maintaining a stable, efficient combustion system. The performance of high-shear airblast fuel injectors is highly dependent on the design of the dome swirl vanes. The type of swirl vanes most widely used in gas turbine combustors are usually flat for ease of manufacture, but vanes with curvature will, in general, give superior aerodynamic performance. The design and performance of high-turning, low-loss curved dome swirl vanes with twist along the span are investigated. The twist induces a secondary vortex flow pattern which will improve the atomization of the fuel, thereby producing a more uniform fuel-air distribution. This uniform distribution will increase combustion efficiency while lowering NO(x) emissions. A systematic swirl vane design system is presented based on one-, two-, and three-dimensional flowfield calculations, with variations in vane-turning angle, rate of turning, vane solidity, and vane twist as design parameters

Cooling Duct Analysis for Transpiration/Film Cooled Liquid Propellant Rocket Engines

The development of a low cost space transportation system requires that the propulsion system be reusable, have long life, with good performance and use low cost propellants. Improved performance can be achieved by operating the engine at higher pressure and temperature levels than previous designs. Increasing the chamber pressure and temperature, however, will increase wall heating rates. This necessitates the need for active cooling methods such as film cooling or transpiration cooling. But active cooling can reduce the net thrust of the engine and add considerably to the design complexity. Recently, a metal drawing process has been patented where it is possible to fabricate plates with very small holes with high uniformity with a closely specified porosity. Such a metal plate could be used for an inexpensive transpiration/film cooled liner to meet the demands of advanced reusable rocket engines, if coolant mass flow rates could be controlled to satisfy wall cooling requirements and performance. The present study investigates the possibility of controlling the coolant mass flow rate through the porous material by simple non-active fluid dynamic means. The coolant will be supplied to the porous material by series of constant geometry slots machined on the exterior of the engine

Three Dimensional Analysis of Advanced Swirl Vane/Nozzle Assemblies

The performance of high shear axial inflow/radial outflow airblast fuel injectors for advanced gas turbine combustors is highly dependent on the design of the swirl vanes. Curved vanes usually exhibit lower losses but straight vanes are also used due to lower cost and ease of manufacture. These type of vanes often operate under highly stalled conditions with high total pressure loss and a highly non-uniform exit velocity profile. This may produce poor fuel atomization with a non-uniform combustor fuel distribution resulting in lowered combustor efficiency and increased pollutant emissions. Properly designed vanes result in a greatly reduced total pressure loss. The exit velocity distribution is more uniform and higher in magnitude which can result in improved fuel atomization and distribution in the combustor. The present study investigates two curved swirler/nozzle shroud configurations operating at 1 and 10 atmospheres pressure for the same inlet temperature of 293°K. The first configuration was a twisted curved vane with thickness where the turning angle varied non-linearly from hub to tip with a maximum turning at the tip of 70 degrees. The second configuration was a curved vane with a linear variation of turning with 70 degrees turning at the tip. The results from a three dimensional viscous numerical flow simulation of these configurations shows similar performance for all cases investigated. The non-linear twisted vane however, had an approximately 3% higher mass flow rate than the vane with the linear variation in turning for the same exit static pressure at the hub. One problem which existed for all the conditions analyzed was a high loss region near the vane tip. This was due to the interaction with the shroud. As the flow exits the vane row and progresses along the nozzle outer lip, the flow area increases. This condition along with the streamline curvature effect of the outer nozzle lip causes an adverse pressure gradient to be formed in this region. This adverse pressure gradient causes the flow to separate from the vane suction surface. The problem initiated in the region of 70% span and increased in magnitude to the vane tip.</jats:p

Effect of Swirl and Wall Geometry on the Emissions of Advanced Gas Turbine Combustors

A numerical study was performed to investigate the chemically reactive flow with liquid spray injection in a staged combustor concept for reducing pollutant emissions. The staged combustor consists of an airblast atomizer, a rich bum section, a converging connecting pipe, a quick mix zone, a diverging connecting pipe, and a lean combustion zone. For computational efficiency, the combustor was split into two subsystems, i.e. the fuel nozzle/rich burn section and the quick quench/lean bum section. The current study investigates the effect of wall geometry and swirl direction, i.e. co- or counter-rotating swirl, on fuel distribution, temperature distribution, and emissions for the fuel nozzle/rich bum section at a cruise condition. At an equivalence ratio of 1.9, the nozzle-combustor (dome) interface geometry was varied from a flat wall (normal to the combustor wall) to a sloped wall of 45 degrees. It is seen that the sloped wall with co-rotating swirl direction had a substantial effect on combustor performance and reducing pollutant emissions.</jats:p

Numerical Simulations of Advanced Transonic Compressor Stages Using an Unsteady Quasi-Three-Dimensional Flow Solver

This study presents the results of numerical simulations of single stage transonic axial-flow compressors. The numerical scheme used solves the unsteady quasi-three-dimensional thin-layer Navier-Stokes equations. In the first part of the study, the validation of the numerical scheme for advanced transonic axial-flow compressor stages is presented. The results of a numerical simulation are compared to an experimentally tested transonic compressor stage of DFVLR. Further simulations are performed on an advanced transonic compressor stage design to investigate the effect of airfoil geometry re-scaling, in order to save computing time, on the numerical results. Two cases are simulated: a modified geometry where less stator blades are simulated and an exact geometry where the exact geometry is modeled. Good agreement is obtained between the experimental and numerical results for the first test case, indicating the validity of the quasi-three dimensional method. The last two simulations show that any significant re-scaling of the stage geometry will have an adverse effect on overall results. All of the simulations show that the unsteady rotor-stator interactions have a significant effect on stage performance.</jats:p