Study of Flow and Convective Heat Transfer in a Simulated Scaled Up Low Emission Annular Combustor

Abstract

Modern Dry Low Emissions (DLE) combustors are characterized by highly swirling and expanding flows that makes the convective heat load on the gas side difficult to predict and estimate. A coupled experimental-numerical study of swirling flow inside a DLE annular combustor model is presented. A simulated scaled up annular combustor shell was designed with a generic fuel nozzle model to create the swirl in the flow. The experiment was simulated with a cold flow and heated combustor walls in a low speed wind tunnel. An infrared camera was used to obtain the temperature distribution along the liner wall. The experiment was conducted at various Reynolds numbers to investigate the effect on the convective heat transfer peak locations. A CFD study performed using FLUENT was used to get a better understanding of high swirl flow field and its effect on the heat transfer on liner walls. Results show that the heat transfer distributions in the annulus have slightly different characteristics for the concave and convex walls. Results also show a much slower drop in heat transfer coefficient enhancement with increasing Reynolds number compared to can combustor liner walls.