Global warming, climate change and pollution are nowadays burning issues. In this context, the aeronautical industry has been asked to reduce engine emissions, developing lean combustors and hence devoting major efforts in analyzing flame dynamics issues like thermoacoustic instabilities or extinctions.  In line with this effort, Safran Helicopter Engines has recently developed and patented the revolutionary spinning combustion technology (SCT) for its next generation of combustors. This Technology has a great impact on ignition and blow-off capabilities. To better understand the particular physical mechanisms occurring in SCT combustor, a joint numerical  and experimental  analysis of flame dynamics in this new spinning combustion technology framework, is presented.  On the experimental side, one of the NTNU annular combustor operating under atmospheric conditions has been modified to introduce a relevant azimuthal component of velocity while operating under premixed fuel conditions, following the SCT concept. To take care of the temperature issue at the backplane of the chamber, film cooling is also considered to avoid fuel injector damage. On the numerical side, High fidelity Large Eddy Simulations of the test bench have been carried out with the AVBP code developed at CERFACS giving access to the flow response to the geometrical changes as well as the flame dynamics.  In particular, it is noted that due to the strong gyration of the flow in the annular combustor, the individual injector flame fronts rapidly merge generating a combustion front covering the entire annular section of the combustor. Prior to these details and observations, the geometry of the modified test bench will be first presented, underlining interesting points about the design process and the generation of the velocity azimuthal component in the annular chamber. Second, the LES modeling framework is detailed and the main results of the AVBP predictions are presented. Finally, predictions are compared to experiments performed at NTNU in order to validate our modelling approach.


Numerical and Experimental Flame Stabilization Analysis in the New Spinning Combustion Technology Framework

Division / Sponsor:
International Gas Turbine Institute (IGTI)

Paper Proceedings: https://asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/GT/GT2020/volume/84058

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