Observations of Flame Behavior From a Practical Fuel Injector Using Gaseous Fuel in a Technology Combustor

Abstract

This paper presents results from an Air Force program being conducted by researchers at Brigham Young University (BYU) Wright-Patterson Air Force Base (WPAFB), and Pratt and Whitney Aircraft Co (P&W). This study is part of a comprehensive effort being supported by the Aero Propulsion and Power Laboratory at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, and Pratt and Whitney Aircraft, Inc. in which simple and complex diffusion flames are being studied to better understand the fundamentals of gas turbine combustion near lean blowout. The program’s long term goal is to improve the design methodology of gas turbine combustors. This paper focuses on four areas of investigation: 1) digitized images from still film photographs to document the observed flame structures as fuel equivalence ratio was varied, 2) sets of LDA data to quantify the velocity flow fields existing in the burner, 3) CARS measurements of gas temperature to determine the temperature field in the combustion zone, and to evaluate the magnitude of peak temperature, and 4) two-dimensional images of OH radical concentrations using PLIF to document the instantaneous location of the flame reaction zones.