Optimization of fuel distribution in the afterburner of a gas turbine engine

Abstract

The use of 3-D simulation programs and in particular NX and ANSYS simulators brought the design and fine tuning of gas turbine engine combustion chambers to the next level, as it allows improving the performance (increased combustion efficiency, reduced radial and circumferential non-uniformity of the total gas temperature), as well as determining the weak points of the structure. The article analyzes the flow of fuel jets from the finger sprayers of the afterburner of the combustion chamber of a gas turbine engine. The problem of optimizing the distribution of fuel is formulated: the fuel at the exit of the flame tube is to be evenly distributed by varying the diameters of the holes in the fuel manifolds. Restrictions are imposed on the optimization problem the supply of fuel to the peripheral zone at the outlet of the afterburner is reduced by a factor of five. The optimization effect is verified by comparing the fuel combustion efficiency in the case of standard fuel distribution with the optimized distribution option using the NX and ANSYS 3-D simulations. As a result, we observe an increase in combustion efficiency in all afterburner modes of engine operation.

Keywords

• gas turbine engine
• afterburner
• finger atomizer
• flame tube
• fuel distribution
• optimization