The use of gas-dynamic flame stabilization in afterburner combustion chambers of aircraft gas turbine engines

Abstract

It is impossible to abandon the use of the afterburner combustion chamber in designing advanced gas turbine engines. Well-known and well-established structural designs of afterburners were developed several decades ago and do not meet the requirements imposed upon advanced projects, some of which appeared only now. In this context, it became necessary to develop new structural concepts and ways of organizing the working process of afterburner combustion chambers. One of such methods is the rejection of aerodynamic stabilization of the flame by using bluff bodies (angled stabilizers) in favor of gas dynamic stabilization. Gas-dynamic flame stabilization can be effected by the injection of air streams into the gas flow. Its application will reduce the blocking of the flow part of the afterburner, which will be good for the non-afterburning regimes of the engines work; besides, the possibilities of controlling the workflow will be expanded. But the implementation of gas-dynamic stabilization requires a source of compressed air. Bleeding the air from behind the compressor seems to be the best way for this purpose. A proposed combustion chamber flame tube head, the relationship of the characteristics of the injected streams and the gas flow to ensure stable operation of the afterburner, the effect of air bleeding for the needs of the gas-dynamic stabilization of the flame on the workflow of the engine as a whole are discussed in the article.

Keywords

• afterburner chambers
• gas dynamic stabilization
• propulsion and economic characteristics