Design and Performance of an Improved Trapped Vortex Combustor

A trapped vortex combustor (TVC) has been a very promising novel concept for it offers improvements in lean blow out, altitude relight, operating range, as well as a potential to decrease NOx emissions compared to conventional combustors. The present paper discusses the improved designs of the new combustor over the prior ones of our research group, including that:a) the over-all dimensions, both axial and radial, are reduced to those of an actual aero-engine combustor; b) the air flow distribution is optimized, and especially 15% of the air is fed into the liner as cooling air; c) a straight-wall diffuser with divergence angle 9°is added. A series of experiments (cavity-fueled only, under atmospheric pressure) has been conducted to investigate the performance of the improved TVC. Experimental results show that at the inlet temperature of 523 K, the inlet pressure of 0.1 MPa, stable operation of the TVC test rig is observed for the Mach number 0.15-0.34, indicating good flame stability; the combustion efficiency obtained in this paper falls into the range of 60%-96%; as the total excess air ratio increases, the combustion efficiency decreases, while the increase of the inlet temperature is beneficial to high combustion efficiency; besides, the optimal Mach numbers for high combustion efficiency under different inlet conditions are confirmed. The outlet temperature profiles feature a bottom in the mid-height of the exit. This paper demonstrates the feasibility for the TVC to be applied to a realistic aero-engine preliminarily and provides reference for TVC design.