Heavy-fuel flame radiation in gas turbine combustors—exploratory results
✍ Scribed by Eric M. Goodger; Yousef S.H. Najjar
- Publisher
- Elsevier Science
- Year
- 1977
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 428 KB
- Volume
- 56
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0016-2361
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✦ Synopsis
With lower costs and greater availability, heavy fuel oil appears as an attractive alternative to the conventional gas oil used in industrial gas turbines. However, higher levels of radiation and smoke are expected, and this note reports on some preliminary tests made with a combustion chamber burning fuels of different carbon content, ranging from kerosine to a 25% blend of residual fuel oil in gas oil, at a chamber pressure of 10 atm*.
The combustion rig was equipped with a total-radiation pyrometer and black-body furnace capable of measurement at different axial stations along the spray-stabilized flame.
The presence of the residual fuel oil in the gas oil was found to promote significant increases in the mean levels of radiation, emissivity and smoke density, with a modest increase in liner temperature.
The gas turbine engine is now established as the major propulsive unit in aviation, having been developed mainly on a high-quality kerosine fuel. A comparable impact would be made in industry generally if the gas turbine could digest heavy fuels since this would match the existing consumption pattern of petroleum-based fuels. In the United Kingdom, for example, fuel oils comprise some 35% of the total consumption of petroleum products compared with about 3% for the higher-priced kerosines. However, problems arise with the use of heavy fuels in engines owing to the high content of carbon and ash. As a fresh approach, a gas-turbine heavy-fuel project was inaugurated at Cranfield in late 1975, sponsored by the Wolfson Foundation, and concerned primarily with the problems of combustion, pollution, corrosion and erosion. The approach, adopted jointly by the School of Mechanical Engineering and the Department of Materials, is the systematic investigation of the major controlling parameters of combustor and turbine environment, and of fuel and additive characteristics.
This present note reports on preliminary experimental studies of the influence of blending with residual fuel on flame radiation, emissivity, combustor liner temperature and smoke emission.