Numerical analysis of free vortex flow in a combustor model

Swirling flow in gas turbine combustors is a very common tradition in aerospace and/or industrial applications. This is because, swirl flows help to anchor flames, and cause better air-fuel mixing which enhance combustion efficiency and reduce harmful emissions. As a result, it is of a high interest to be able to predict the behavior of swirling turbulent flows in order to better design combustors. Therefore, this study performs a numerical simulation of an isothermal swirling turbulent flow of air at room temperature in a combustor model, created using a 0.4 free vortex swirler. The simulation was performed via a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) software. Results of three different turbulence models were compared against experimental measurements found in the open literature for the same swirler and same all flow specifications upstream of the swirler. Consequently, it was found that the k-ε turbulence model best predicts the actual swirl flow behavior and exhibits superior prediction quality compared to the other tested models.