Calculation of flow characteristics of liquid fuel supplied through pressure jet atomizers of small-sized gas turbine engines

Abstract

The paper presents the results of studying the flow characteristics of liquid fuel in pressure jet atomizers of small-sized gas turbine engines with nozzle diameters of 0.4-0.6 mm for various operating and design parameters. The study was carried out using experimental measurements, semi-empirical correlations and CFD (computational fluid dynamics) methods. The Euler approach, the volume- of- fluid (VOF) method, was used to model multiphase flows in CFD simulations. Good agreement was obtained between experimental and predicted data on the fuel coefficient and the primary spray cone angle at the nozzle outlet. Besides, the assessment of the applicability of semi-empirical techniques for the nozzle configurations under consideration is given. In the future, the flow characteristics in question (the nozzle flow rate, the fuel film thickness, and the primary spray cone angle) can be used to determine the mean diameter of the droplets (SMD) required to fully determine the boundary conditions of fuel injection when modeling combustion processes in combustion chambers of small-sized gas turbine engines.

Keywords

• small-sized gas turbine engine
• combustion chamber
• atomizer fuel flow
• volume-of-fluid method
• primary spray cone angle
• atomizer flow rate
• fuel film thickness