Investigation of Aircraft Gas Turbine Combustor Having Low Mass Emissions

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Abstract
This paper describes research on low mass emissions can combustors similar in performance and envelope to the Army T63-A-5A gas turbine engine combustor. The objectives were to develop, using a T63 liner as a, baseline, a combustor having a 50 percent overall reduction in mass emissions (CO, CxHy, NOx and smoke) with no increase in any individual pollutant when tested over a typical Army light observation helicopter (LOH) duty cycle. Initial efforts were directed toward evaluating analytically, using both kinetics and empirical data, the potentials of various emission reduction concepts. Seventeen experimental combustors, each incorporating one or more of the selected concepts, were then designed, fabricated and tested. Experimental results indicated that several concepts had the potential for meeting the program objectives. Two combustors selected for final evaluation were the “Prechamber” and “Modified Conventional.” The low emission feature in the Prechamber combustor is premix/prevaporization. The Modified Conventional combustor incorporates four low emission features: airblast fuel atomization, delayed dilution, convection cooling, and variable geometry. Both of these combustors met the emission reduction objectives. Experimental results indicated that both of these liners can be developed to meet all other conventional T63 combustor requirements i.e., light-off, temperature profile, durability, etc. The estimated development time for the Prechamber is longer than for the Modified Conventional.

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