Radial Fuel Injector Assembly for Gas Turbine Combustion
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Solution Overview
Problem
Gas turbine engine combustors face challenges in achieving high-energy combustion while minimizing emissions, combustion instability, structural wear, and maintaining a compact design, as existing designs often result in larger combustion swirls or flames that increase the risk of acoustic pressure dynamics, lean blow-out, and structural damage.
Innovation Solution
A fuel injector assembly with radially oriented fuel injection ports and air inlet ports creates high turbulence for efficient fuel-air mixing, reducing swirl and flame length, and includes a centerbody with a cooling cavity and impingement openings to manage heat and prevent fuel deposition, thereby stabilizing combustion and reducing emissions.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Power
If an axially oriented vane or swirler is incorporated in serial combination with a fuel injector to improve fuel-air mixing and atomization, then high-energy combustion is achieved, but combustion instability, acoustic pressure dynamics, and structural damage increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent inverts the conventional axial swirler design by using radially oriented vanes that generate tangential flow components instead of axial swirl. This radial-to-tangential flow transformation creates effective fuel-air mixing and combustion stability without the harmful axial combustion swirls and acoustic pressure dynamics associated with traditional swirler designs
Solution Approach 2:
The patent changes the flow direction parameters by orienting fuel injection ports radially rather than axially, and positioning air inlet ports to create radial flow patterns. This parameter change transforms the combustion flow dynamics to achieve high-energy combustion without the instability problems of conventional axial designs
2Productivity
If larger combustion swirls are created to improve fuel-air mixing, then combustion efficiency increases, but combustor length and engine size increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent inverts the conventional approach by using radially oriented components that generate compact tangential flow patterns instead of extending axial swirls. This creates efficient fuel-air mixing within a shorter combustor length, reducing overall engine size while maintaining combustion efficiency
Solution Approach 2:
The patent transitions from axial (one-dimensional) flow patterns to radial and tangential (two-dimensional) flow patterns. This dimensional change enables effective mixing and combustion in a more compact space, reducing the required combustor length while maintaining or improving combustion efficiency
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
The solution achieves high-energy combustion with reduced emissions and instability, maintaining or decreasing combustor size, and enhancing structural integrity by promoting finer combustion dynamics control and even thermal profiles across the combustor.
Implementation Method 1
A plurality of radially oriented fuel injection ports and air inlet ports are defined in a fuel nozzle to produce high turbulence of a flow of air mixing with a liquid and/or gaseous fuel
Implementation Method 2
a centerbody with a cooling cavity and impingement openings to manage heat and prevent fuel deposition
Data Source
AI summary
The present disclosure is directed to a fuel injector including a centerbody defining an air inlet opening defined substantially radially through the centerbody; an outer sleeve surrounding the centerbody, and an end wall coupled to the centerbody and the outer sleeve. The outer sleeve defines a radially oriented first air inlet port defined radially outward of the air inlet opening at the centerbody. A mixing passage is defined between the outer sleeve and the centerbody. A first fuel injection port is defined substantially axially through the end wall to the mixing passage. The first fuel injection port defines a first fuel injection opening at the mixing passage between the first air inlet port at the outer sleeve and the air inlet opening at the centerbody.