Investigation of effect of atomization performance on lean blowout limit for gas turbine combustors by comparison of utilizing aviation kerosene and methane as fuel

Abstract

Abstract The lean blowout (LBO) limit is crucial for gas turbine combustor in the aero engine. The effect of atomization of liquid fuels on the LBO limit is needed to be further studied. On the other hand, the effects of atomization on the LBO limit can be neglected if gas fuels are utilized in a combustor. Thus, the comparative experiment between liquid fuel and gas fuel can be utilized to study the effects of atomization performance of liquid fuels on the LBO limit. In this paper, the LBO limit for a gas turbine combustor utilizing methane is studied experimentally. Seven kinds of combustor configurations are chosen for the experimental test. The LBO limits are obtained for all the chosen combustors. The variation of the LBO limit with the combustor configuration for both methane and aviation kerosene exhibits the similar tendency, i.e., the LBO limits utilizing methane are slightly larger than those utilizing aviation kerosene for the same combustor. Further, the atomization performance has little effects on the LBO limits for the present combustor configurations at the present operating conditions where the SMD for the fuel atomizer utilizing aviation kerosene is about 10 μm.