Temperature Distribution on a Gas Turbine Shaft Exposed to Swirl Combustor Flue

Abstract

A gas turbine shaft is generally exposed to high-temperature gases and may seriously be affected and overheated due to temperature fluctuations in the combustion chamber. Vortex flow in the combustion chamber may increase the heat release rate and combustion efficiency, as well as control the location of energy release. However, this may result in excessive temperature on the combustor equipment and gas turbine shaft. In this study, a new gas turbine combustion chamber implementing a liner around the shaft and the liquid-fuel feeding system is designed and fabricated. The influences of parameters such as the Reynolds number and the equivalence ratio are studied. Experimental results are compared with a numerical simulation using OpenFOAM, which is an open-source computational fluid dynamics software. The results show that the heat transfer to the liner at the head end of the combustion chamber is high enough; and at the outlet of the combustion chamber, it is relatively low. The effects of parameters such as the equivalence ratio and the mass flow rate of the oxidizer on the temperature of the liner without cooling are investigated and compared with the numerical solution. Also, in the numerical simulation, the swirl intensity along the chamber is provided. These types of combustion chambers can be used in gas turbine engines due to their low weight, short length, and better mixing.