Assessment of the combustion chambers' atmospheric test data

Abstract

Due to the complexities of the turbulent reacting flows in the combustion chamber of the turbo-engines, despite significant advances in the computational fluid dynamics, the experimental investigations are still very useful in design and optimization processes. On the other hand, the operating conditions of the combustion chambers are such that they have high inlet pressures and temperatures, so providing these conditions for the considered air flow in the combustion chamber is very complex and expensive. Therefore, the development of low pressure test stands has been considered for decades, and the atmospheric tests are utilized in many research centers and industries related to the turbo-engines. In the present study, using numerical simulations, the effect of pressure on the flame shape and pollutants is investigated and the validity of the results of atmospheric tests is analyzed. Here, an in-house developed program is used to solve the governing equations using the finite volume method. The results show that the flame shape significantly varies at low pressures compared to the operating conditions, and the atmospheric test data are not reliable enough.