DESIGN OF GASTURBINE COMBUSTION CHAMBER

ABSTRACT:
The combustion chamber of gas turbine unit is one of the most critical components to be
designed. Scanning through literature reveals that the design methodologies for combustion
chamber are available in a discrete manner and there exist a need to compile this information
and evolve a systematic design procedure for combustion chamber. The present project is an
attempt towards presenting such a complete design methodology of combustion chamber for
gas turbine applications. The combustion chamber for the 20 kW gas turbine engine has been
designed.. The pressure loss is in delivery pressure which suggests the design of the
combustion chamber.
Keywords: combustion chamber; gas turbine, diffuser
INTRODUCTION:
A gas turbine, also called a combustion turbine, is a type of internal combustion engine. It has
an upstream rotating compressor coupled to a downstream turbine, and a combustion
chamber in between. The basic operation of the gas turbine is similar to that of the steam
power plant except that air is used instead of water. Fresh atmospheric air flows through
a compressor that brings it to higher pressure. Energy is then added by spraying fuel into the
air and igniting it so the combustion generates a high-temperature flow. This hightemperature high-pressure gas enters a turbine, where it expands down to the exhaust
pressure, producing a shaft work output in the process. The turbine shaft work is used to drive
the compressor and other devices such as an electric generator that may be coupled to the
shaft. The energy that is not used for shaft work comes out in the exhaust gases, so these have
either a high temperature or a high velocity. The purpose of the gas turbine determines the
design so that the most desirable energy form is maximized. Gas turbines are used to
power aircraft, trains, ships, electrical generators, or even tanks. Air breathing jet engines are
gas turbines optimized to produce thrust from the exhaust gases, or from ducted
fans connected to the gas turbines. Jet engines that produce thrust from the direct impulse of
exhaust gases are often called turbojets, whereas those that generate thrust with the addition
of a ducted fan are often called turbofans or (rarely) fan-jets. Gas turbines are also used in
many liquid propellant rockets, the gas turbines are used to power a turbo pump to permit the
use of lightweight, low pressure tanks, which saves considerable dry mass. The design and
analysis of gas turbine combustion chamber is based on combined theoretical and empirical
approach and the design of combustion chamber is a less than exact science. This paper
presents the design of combustion chamber followed by three dimensional simulations to
investigate the velocity profiles, species concentration and temperature distribution within the

chamber and the fuel considered as Methane (CH4). The computational approach attempts to
strike a reasonable balance to handle the competing aspects of complicated physical and
chemical interactions of the flow to analyse the flow pattern with in combustion and through
air admission holes and from these the temperature distribution in the chamber walls as well
as the temperature quality at the exit of combustion chamber is obtained.

Gas turbine combustion chamber

Materials and methodology:

Air from the engine compressor enters the combustion chamber at a velocity up to 500 feet
per second, but because at this velocity the air speed is far too high for combustion, the first
thing that the chamber must do is to diffuse it, i.e. decelerate it and raise its static pressure.
Since the speed of burning kerosene at normal mixture ratios is only a few feet per second,
any fuel lit even in the diffused air stream, which now has a velocity of about 80 feet per
second, would be blown away. A region of low axial velocity has therefore to be created in
the chamber, so that the flame will remain alight throughout the of a combustion chamber can
vary between 45:1 and130:1, However, kerosene will only burn efficiently at, or close to, a
ratio of 15:1, so the fuel must be burned with only part of the air entering the chamber, in
what is called a primary combustion zone. This is achieved by means of a flame tube
(combustion liner) that has various devices for metering the airflow distribution along the
chamber. Approximately 20 per cent of the air mass flow is taken in by the snout or entry
section .Immediately downstream of the snout are swirl vanes and a perforated flare, through
which air passes into the primary combustion zone. The swirling air induces a flow upstream
of the centre of the flame tube and promotes the desired recirculation. The air not picked up
by the snout flows into the annular Space between the flame tube and the air casing. Design
and Analysis of Gas Turbine Combustion Chamber Airflow distribution along the chamber
through the wall of the flame tube body, adjacent to the combustion zone, are a selected

number of secondary holes through which a further 20 per cent of the main flow of air passes
into the primary zone. The air from the swirl vanes and that from the secondary air holes
interacts and creates a region of low velocity recirculation. This takes the form of a toroidal
vortex, similar to a smoke ring, which has the effect of stabilizing and anchoring the flame
The re-circulating gases hasten the burning of freshly injected fuel droplets by rapidly
bringing them to ignition temperature Smoke ring It is arranged that the conical fuel spray
from the nozzle intersects the recirculation vortex at its centre. This action, together with the
general turbulence in the primary zone, greatly assists in breaking up the fuel and mixing it
with the incoming air. The temperature of the gases released by combustion is about 1,800 to
2,000 deg. C., which is far too hot for entry to the nozzle guide vanes of the turbine. The air
not used for combustion, which amounts to about 60 per cent of the total airflow, is therefore
introduced progressively into the flame tube. Approximately a third of this is used to lower
the gas temperature in the dilution zone before it enters the turbine and the remainder is used
for cooling the walls of the flame tube. This is achieved by a film of cooling air flowing
along the inside surface of the flame tube wall, insulating it from the hot combustion gases. A
recent development allows cooling air to enter a network of passages within the flame tube
wall before exiting to form an insulating film of air, this can reduce the required wall cooling
airflow by up to 50 per cent. Combustion should be completed before the dilution air enters
the flame tube, otherwise the incoming air will cool the flame and incomplete combustion
will result.

Air flow distribution along the chamber

Advantages of gas turbine engines:

Very high power-to-weight ratio, compared to reciprocating engines;

Smaller than most reciprocating engines of the same power rating.
Moves in one direction only, with far less vibration than a reciprocating engine.
Fewer moving parts than reciprocating engines.
Low operating pressures.
High operation speeds.
Low lubricating oil cost and consumption.

Disadvantages of gas turbine engines:

Cost is much greater than for a similar-sized reciprocating engine since the materials
must be stronger and more heat resistant. Machining operations are also more complex;
Usually less efficient than reciprocating engines, especially at idle.
Delayed response to changes in power settings.
These disadvantages explain why road vehicles, which are smaller, cheaper and follow a less
regular pattern of use than tanks, helicopters, large boats and so on, dont use gas turbine
engines, regardless of the size and power advantages imminently available.
GAS TURBINE COMBUSTION CHAMBER:
A gas turbine combustor is a device for raising the temperature of the incoming air stream
from compressor by the addition and combustion of fuel. In serving this purpose, the
combustor must satisfy many conflicting requirement. It must be capable of initiating ignition
easily and must operate stably over a wide range of conditions. At all operating points, it must
essentially provide for complete combustion of the fuel while minimizing the formation and
emission of undesirable pollutants. To avoid damaging the turbine, sufficient mixing must be
achieved in the combustor to obtain an acceptable exit gas temperature distribution. The
combustor must also operate with as minimum a pressure loss as practical to maintain high
overall performance. Finally, all of these functions must be performed in a configuration,
which has minimum size, weight, and cost and which is sufficiently durable to achieve an
acceptable operating life. Combustor is one of the main sub-systems of the engine where the
most varied and complex physical phenomena take place. Highly 3-D flows, turbulent,
dysphasic, mixed flows, complex chemical reactions, unsteady and multidimensional flow of
heat transfer, radiative flows are some of the problems. The fuel injection process alone using
a particular type of fuel injection system called the air blast atomizer involves problems
related to the shearing of air-fuel sheets, either co-rotating or counter rotating the formation
of droplets, their mixing, trajectory, size and evaporation. Gas Turbine combustors cannot
accept high velocities of air at the inlet. It would be almost impossible to stabilize combustion
of Kerosene products in such a high velocity air stream. Furthermore the fundamental
pressure loss which occurs whenever heat is added to a flowing gas is directly proportional to
the square of the velocity. Therefore it is necessary to reduce the compressor exit velocity
which is is discharged into the combustion chamber. This is achieved through a diffuser
which accomplishes this effectively, controlling boundary layer growth and avoiding flow
separation along the diffuser walls while minimizing length and overall size. The subsonic
diffuser is one of the critical components of a combustor.

FRONT VEIW OF GAS TURBINE COMBUSTION CHAMBER

A diffuser is used to reduce the average velocity of fluid flow in a duct. In subsonic flow, this
reduction in velocity is achieved by gradually increasing the cross sectional area of the duct.
For an efficient diffuser, the reduction in velocity is accompanied by an increase in static
pressure. A diffuser in its simplest form may be defined by its non-dimensional length, its
area ratio and the divergence angle. If the divergence angle is too small then the pressure loss
will be less, but longer diffuser will produce high frictional losses and also the overall weight
of the engine will be increased. On the other hand, if the divergence angle is too large, the
shorter diffuser will give lower frictional losses, but flow separation in the boundary layer
will produce excessive pressure loss. Dump diffuser is used in modern aero gas turbine
combustors in which the flow from compressor exit passes through the pre diffuser and is
dumped in the dump region. The length is quite short as compared to the long aerodynamic
diffuser in which the flow is all along attached to the diffuser walls. The short dump diffusers
give an advantage in gaining the thrust-to-weight (T/W) ratio of the engine. The cut-and-try
methods generally used to design combustion chambers in the past have been giving way in
recent years to more systematic approach based on analysis and co-relation of experimental
data .This approach is potentially capable of substantially reducing development time and
expense while improving combustor performance. The analytical methods and co-relations
presently available are not exact in many respects. However, CFD analysis can be efficiently
used for solving complex flows. The combustor design has to be achieved with many
constraints viz: The overall size is dictated by compressor and turbine. The combustor has to
accept the compressor exit conditions, should be highly efficient and the combustor exit

conditions should cater to the required turbine inlet conditions for maximized turbine
performance. In many respects, these requirements are mutually incompatible. Achieving an
improvement in one aspect of performance very often requires a corresponding sacrifice in
some other area. Some of the conflicts are as follows: 1. The mixing within the combustor
can be increased to improve the uniformity of the exit temperature distribution at the expense
of increasing either the pressure loss (i.e. liner pressure loss) or the combustor length 2.
Emission of nitric oxides and smoke can be reduced by designing for a lean combustion zone.
However, doing so results in decreased ignition performance, turndown ratio and combustion
efficiency. 3. The frontal area of the combustor can be increased to improve combustion
efficiency and flame stability, but this leads to a larger and heavier configuration, which
becomes more difficult to cool. These are typical considerations in the design and
development of a combustor for any given application. Thus, achieving a successful
combustor configuration involves trade-offs among the various relevant design and
performance criteria until the optimum compromise has been reached, which best satisfies all
of the imposed specifications and constraints.

Components of gas turbine:

Case:
The case is the outer shell of the combustor, and is a fairly simple structure. The casing
generally requires little maintenance. The case is protected from thermal loads by the air
flowing in it, so thermal performance is of limited concern. However, the casing serves as a
pressure vessel that must withstand the difference between the high pressures inside the

combustor and the lower pressure outside. That mechanical (rather than thermal) load is a
driving design factor in the case.

Diffuser
The purpose of the diffuser is to slow the high speed, highly compressed, air from
the compressor to a velocity optimal for the combustor. Reducing the velocity results in an
unavoidable loss in total pressure, so one of the design challenges is to limit the loss of
pressure as much as possible. Furthermore, the diffuser must be designed to limit the flow
distortion as much as possible by avoiding flow effects like boundary layer separation. Like
most other gas turbine engine components, the diffuser is designed to be as short and light as
possible.

Liner
The liner contains the combustion process and introduces the various airflows (intermediate,
dilution, and cooling, see Air flow paths below) into the combustion zone. The liner must be
designed and built to withstand extended high temperature cycles. For that reason liners tend
to be made from super alloys like Hastelloy X. Furthermore, even though high performance
alloys are used, the liners must be cooled with air flow. Some combustors also make use
of thermal barrier coatings. However, air cooling is still required. In general, there are two
main types of liner cooling; film cooling and transpiration cooling. Film cooling works by
injecting (by one of several methods) cool air from outside of the liner to just inside of the
liner. This creates a thin film of cool air that protects the liner, reducing the temperature at the
liner from around 1800 kelvins (K) to around 830 K, for example. The other type of liner
cooling, transpiration cooling, is a more modern approach that uses a porous material for the
liner. The porous liner allows a small amount of cooling air to pass through it, providing
cooling benefits similar to film cooling. The two primary differences are in the resulting
temperature profile of the liner and the amount of cooling air required. Transpiration cooling
results in a much more even temperature profile, as the cooling air is uniformly introduced
through pores. Film cooling air is generally introduced through slats or louvers, resulting in
an uneven profile where it is cooler at the slat and warmer between the slats. More
importantly, transpiration cooling uses much less cooling air .Using less air for cooling
allows more to be used for combustion, which is more and more important for high
performance, high thrust engines.

Snout
The snout is an extension of the dome that acts as an air splitter, separating the primary air
from the secondary air flows (intermediate, dilution, and cooling air.

Dome / swirler
The dome and swirler are the part of the combustor that the primary flows through as it enters
the combustion zone. Their role is to generate turbulence in the flow to rapidly mix the air
with fuel. Early combustors tended to use bluff body domes (rather than swirlers), which used
a simple plate to create wake turbulence to mix the fuel and air. Most modern designs,
however, are swirl stabilized (use swirlers).

Fuel injector

Fuel injectors of a cannular combustor

The fuel injector is responsible for introducing fuel to the combustion zone and, along with
the swirler (above), is responsible for mixing the fuel and air.. This type of fuel injector has
the advantage of being very simple, but it has several disadvantages. The fuel system must be
robust enough to withstand such high pressures, and the fuel tends to
be heterogeneously atomized, resulting in incomplete or uneven combustion which has more
pollutants and smoke.
The second type of fuel injector is the air blast injector. This injector "blasts" a sheet of fuel
with a stream of air, atomizing the fuel into homogeneous droplets. This type of fuel injector
led to the first smokeless combustors. The air used is just some amount of the primary air that
is diverted through the injector, rather than the swirler. This type of injector also requires
lower fuel pressures than the pressure atomizing type.
The vaporizing fuel injector, the third type, is similar to the air blast injector in that primary
air is mixed with the fuel as it is injected into the combustion zone. However, the fuel-air
mixture travels through a tube within the combustion zone. Heat from the combustion zone is
transferred to the fuel-air mixture, vaporizing some of the fuel (mixing it better) before it is
combusted. This method allows the fuel to be combusted with less thermal radiation, which
helps protect the liner.
The premixing/prevaporizing injectors work by mixing or vaporizing the fuel before it
reaches the combustion zone. This method allows the fuel to be very uniformly mixed with
the air, reducing emissions from the engine. One disadvantage of this method is that fuel may
auto-ignite or otherwise combust before the fuel-air mixture reaches the combustion zone. If
this happens the combustor can be seriously damaged.

Igniter
Most igniters in gas turbine applications are electrical spark igniters, similar to automotive
spark plugs. The igniter needs to be in the combustion zone where the fuel and air are already
mixed, but it needs to be far enough upstream so that it is not damaged by the combustion
itself. Once the combustion is initially started by the igniter, it is self-sustaining and the
igniter is no longer used. In can-annular and annular combustors the flame can propagate
from one combustion zone to another, so igniters are not needed at each one. In some systems

ignition-assist techniques are used. One such method is oxygen injection, where oxygen is
fed to the ignition area, helping the fuel easily combust. This is particularly useful in some
aircraft applications where the engine may have to restart at high altitude.

DESIGNINED MODEL OF GAS TURBINE:

Cross-sectional view of combustor

Future scope:
Combustor is an important critical hot-end component of an aero gas turbine engine. Design
of combustion system for advanced aero gas turbine engines has become very critical. The
current trend of the aero gas turbine engines is to operate at high-pressure ratios of the order
of 30 with turbine entry temperature of the order of 1700-1800 K. The design of combustion
system is also dictated by the compressor outlet conditions and it has to meet the turbine
design requirements for a satisfactory operation for a desired life. Further with higher
combustor inlet temperature, the temperature differential available across the combustor has
substantially reduced, thereby stressing for the use of effective liner cooling techniques
without compromising thrust and SFC of the engine. As the combustor inlet Mach Numbers
are also in the increasing trend, the combustor is to be designed for minimum pressure loss
and maximum thermal efficiency.

ONGOING RESEARCH:

Effect of inlet disturbances

Combustion in re-circulating flows

Spray Combustion

CONCLUSIONS:

The gas turbine represents a cost effective resource for the Balance-of-Plant in the fuel cell
system, because of its energy conversion performance and the availability as off-the-shelf
equipment. The advanced thermal integration uniquely facilitate the hybrid system integration
with a gas turbine. With the hybrid system integration, the Ztek Planar SOFC and gas turbine
can mutually enhance the favourable characteristics of cost, efficiency, package flexibility,
and environmental performance.

REFERENCES:

Flack, Ronald D. (2005). "Chapter 9: Combustors and Afterburners". Fundamentals of Jet

Propulsion with Applications. Cambridge Aerospace Series. New York, NY: Cambridge University
Press. ISBN 978-0-521-81983-1.

Henderson, Robert E.; Blazowski, William S. (1989). "Chapter 2: Turbopropulsion

Combustion Technology". In Oates, Gordon C. Aircraft Propulsion Systems Technology and
Design. AIAA Education Series. Washington, DC: American Institute of Aeronautics and
Astronautics. ISBN 0-930403-24-X.

Mattingly, Jack D.; Heiser, William H.; Pratt, David T. (2002). "Chapter 9: Engine Component
Design: Combustion Systems". Aircraft Engine Design. AIAA Education Series (2nd ed.). Reston,
VA: American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. ISBN 1-56347-538-3.

Mattingly, Jack D. (2006). "Chapter 10: Inlets, Nozzles, and Combustion Systems". Elements
of Propulsion: Gas Turbines and Rockets. AIAA Education Series. Reston, VA: American Institute
of Aeronautics and Astronautics. ISBN 1-56347-779-3

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combustor

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