Experimental study of slight temperature rise combustion in trapped vortex combustors for gas turbines

Interstage turbine combustion used for improving efficiency of gas turbine was a new type of combustion mode. Operating conditions and technical requirements for this type of combustor were different from those of traditional combustor. It was expected to achieve engineering application in both ground-based and aviation gas turbine in the near future. In this study, a number of modifications in a base design were applied and examined experimentally. The trapped-vortex combustion technology was adopted for flame stability under high velocity conditions, and the preheating-fuel injection technology was used to improve the atomization and evaporation performance of liquid fuel. The experimental results indicated that stable and efficient combustion with slight temperature-rise can be achieved under the high velocity conditions of combustor inlet. Under all experimental conditions, the excess air coefficients of ignition and lean blow-out were larger than 7 and 20, respectively; pollutant emission index of NO_x and the maximum wall temperature were below 2.5 g/(kg fuel) and 1050 K, respectively. Moreover, the effects of fuel injection and overall configuration on the combustion characteristics were analyzed in detail. The number increase, area increase and depth increase of fuel injectors had different influences on the stability, combustion characteristic and temperature distribution.