NUMERICAL AND EXPERIMENTAL INVESTIGATION OF A MICRO GAS TURBINE COMBUSTION CHAMBER

Abstract

Micro gas - turbines (MGT) offer many advantages such as higher thermal efficiency and reduced noise, and are suitable sources for power generation due to their fuel flexibility, small sizes, and high efficiencies. In recent years, there has been an increase interest in developing MGT for transportation platforms such as Range Extender for Electric Vehicle (REEV), Unmanned Ground/Air Vehicles (UGV/UAV), Auxiliary Power Units (APU). For these applications, the MGT must meet essential requirements like reliability, reasonable price, ecological safety, low noise and vibration, multi-fuel, etc. This paper presents the numerical and experimental investigation of a newly designed annular type combustion chamber. This combustion chamber is part of a 40 daN micro gas turbine, destined to equip a small-scale multifunctional airplane. The combustion chamber is equipped with six innovative vaporizers, using Jet-A as fuel, patented by INCDT COMOTI. The experimental installation on which the combustion tests have been performed consists of: the fuel supply system, an air source, the combustion chamber assembly, a chimney for flue gas exhaust. During the combustion chamber testing campaign, the following parameters have been monitored and registered: air mass flow, air temperature, and pressure before the combustion chamber entrance, the temperature at the combustion chamber exit, the temperature before the pressure regulating valve placed on the exhaust pipe. After the testing campaign has been concluded the numerical simulations have been resumed. A three-dimensional RANS numerical integration of the Navier-Stokes equations has been carried out, using an Eddy Dissipation Combustion Model (EDM) and the k-ε turbulence model, implemented in a numerical simulation conducted using the commercial software ANSYS CFX. The computational domain has been modified in order to match the testing rig. Due to the complex geometry of the computational domain, an unstructured type computational grid has been used. The imposed boundary conditions have been changed in order to match the testing conditions and functioning regimes. A kerosene – air two steps reaction mechanism, with NO formation, has been used. The numerical simulation results have been compared with the parameters measured experimentally, thus validating the obtained results.