Performance of an Annular Combustor Under Windmill Conditions During Stand-Alone and Engine Level Altitude Test

Abstract

Relight envelope of the combustor needs to be experimentally generated and established during the design and development of an aero gas turbine engine. Usually, during development stage of engine, compressor characteristics are not readily available at such low speeds and hence, it becomes difficult to specify the combustor inlet conditions such as pressure, temperature and Mach number during the engine light up studies. This paper compares the experimental test data generated on an annular combustor for windmill conditions during stand-alone mode and engine level tests under simulated flight conditions. The stand-alone combustor trials were conducted for the range of total pressure and temperature relevant to the flight altitude and Mach number range. During the engine level tests, combustor relight tests were conducted under simulated conditions (ISA+15) for altitudes ranging from 5.5 km to 10 km, flight Mach numbers in the range of 0.45 to 0.80. In this paper, effect of altitude and flight Mach number on the windmill spool speed, combustor pressure and temperature are studied.