Experimental study of dielectric barrier discharge plasma-assisted combustion in an aero-engine combustor

Abstract

A plasma-assisted combustion test platform was established to validate the feasibility of enhancement on the performances of aero-engine combustion chamber by plasma-assisted combustion technology. The plasma-assisted combustion actuator using dielectric barrier discharge to produce plasma was designed to assemble in front of the combustor diffuser. Comparative experiments between conventional and plasma-assisted combustion were carried out to analyze the combustion enhancement effect on the combustor performances, such as average outlet temperature, combustion efficiency, pattern factor and lean blowout performance. The experimental results show that the combustion efficiency is improved by plasma, especially in fuel-rich condition (α=0.8), the increment reaches 2.31%, when α are 1 and 2, the increments are 1.21% and 0.94% respectively when voltage is 40 kV, and the increment is only 0.39% in too lean conditions (α=4). On the other hand, the higher the voltage, the more obvious increase of the combustion efficiency. The uniformity of the outlet temperature field and lean blowout performance is also improved by plasma-assisted combustion. Under the fuel-rich condition, patten factor is reduced by more than 5%. And the expansion of lean blowout limit is about 4.2%, 9.1%, 12.2% and 23.7% when the inlet velocity is range from 60 m/s to 120 m/s.