United Technologies Corporation

Charles B Graves

Steven Wayne Burd

Robert Thane Mains

Kiran Patwari

Thomas R Clements

Curtis H Scheuerman

Clifford E Smith

Todd M Neill

Kenneth S Siskind

Sherman C Creighton

Jason W Norris

Michael S Ondas

Stephanie DeSalle

Raman Ras

A gas turbine engine swirler/nozzle apparatus has a swirler having a central axis and a nozzle. The nozzle has an outlet end with a plurality of outlets about the central axis and having an asymmetry about the central axis. The apparatus may be formed as a reengineering of a baseline apparatus having a symmetric nozzle.

Combustor nozzle

A gas turbine engine combustor swirler has vanes with a spanwise chord length distribution providing a desired swirl distribution.

Swirler

A fuel injector system provides an air assist fuel nozzle which includes a fuel shroud and an air portion. Air passes around the fuel shroud to air jets in the air portion to provide a focused application of air directly onto a fuel spray from each of a multiple of main fuel jets to impart additional velocity to the fuel as it is flowing out of the fuel nozzle. The air jets increase the resulting fuel spray velocity to a level high enough to reach a prefilmer wall of a swirler even during snap deceleration conditions.

Air assist fuel injector for a combustor

A combustor for a gas turbine engine is provided which includes a plurality of liner segments and a support shell. The support shell includes an interior and an exterior surface, a plurality of mounting holes, and a plurality of impingement coolant holes extending through the support shell. Each liner segment includes a panel and a plurality of mounting studs. The panel includes a face surface and a back surface, and a plurality of normal or inclined coolant holes extending therethrough. The back surface of the panel has a surface profile for improving the heat transfer properties of a liner segment without substantial increase in pressure drop across the combustor.

Gas turbine combustor

An annular combustor suitable for use in a gas turbine engine having a plurality of fuel injectors and a plurality of apertures circumferentially arranged within the inner and outer liners of the combustion chamber is disclosed. Further, each of the apertures of the inner liner are disposed on one side of the centerline of each of the fuel injectors and each of the apertures of the outer liner are disposed on the opposing side of the centerline of each of the fuel injectors. In this way, air exhausted from the apertures advantageously opposes the direction of swirl of the fuel and air mixture that is injected from the fuel injectors thereby providing enhanced mixing of the fuel and air within the combustion chamber, increased residence time and the reduction of hot streaks in the inner and outer liners.

Counter swirl annular combustor

A fuel nozzle, comprising an inlet for receiving fuel and an outlet for discharging fuel. The outlet intersects a longitudinal centerline of the nozzle and produces a skewed spray pattern. A fuel injector having a fuel nozzle outlet such that a fluid discharged from a swirler produces a crescent-shaped spray pattern in the fuel. A burner section of a gas turbine engine comprising a combustion chamber and fuel injectors. At least one of the fuel injectors produces a skewed flame pattern in the combustion chamber that overlaps with a flame pattern from an adjacent fuel injector. A method of improving stability of a flame in a burner section of a gas turbine engine in which at least one of the fuel injectors produces a skewed flame pattern in the burner section to create a fuel non-uniformity, the flame pattern also overlapping with an adjacent flame pattern.

Fuel nozzle producing skewed spray pattern

The fuel nozzle is configured with a fuel injector with a pair of coaxially mounted air swirlers utilized in an annular combustor of a gas turbine engine that is dimensioned to provide 70-90 percent of the mass airflow in the inner passage and the swirl angle of the inner swirler is 45.degree.-55.degree. and the outer swirler is 70.degree. and the L/D of the combustion hole location relative to the fuel injector is 0.6-0.7 which serve to produce an outer shear layer flame for improved lean blowout characteristics.

Fuel injector for producing outer shear layer flame for combustion

The fuel injector for a combustor of a gas turbine engine of the high shear design type is configured to include two swirlers with passages where the vanes in the inner swirler of the inner swirler in the passage which is closest to the centerline of the fuel nozzle includes a judiciously located twist and together with the proper flow ratio between the two swirl passages and the proper swirl angle of the flow stream in each of the passages provide an enhanced fuel injector with improved lean blowout and high altitude relight characteristics while assuring a stable recirculation region in the combustion zone.

Radial inlet swirler with twisted vanes for fuel injector

A swirl mixer for a fuel nozzle having a mixing duct comprising a center duct and two annular ducts located radially outward therefrom. Each duct has an air inlet and swirling vanes located adjacent thereto. The outlet of the center duct is located entirely within the annular duct located radially outward therefrom, and the airflows within the ducts have significantly different swirl angles tailored to yield low smoke production and high relight stability in a high temperature rise combustor.

Outer shear layer swirl mixer for a combustor

The fuel spray bars and a compressor air bar is disposed in the cavities of the extended vanes of the turbine exhaust case to flow a fuel/air mixture perpendicular to the gas path and the pilot burner encased in the tail cone ejects a hot stream of combustion products adjacent the fuel air mixture to ignite the mixture and the ejected compressor air serves to create a recirculation zone adjacent the apertures of the spray bars to sustain combustion during the actuation of the augmentor.

Augmentor burner

A fuel nozzle for the combustor of gas turbine engines includes evacuated radial and axial bellows concentrically mounted to the fuel passages to prevent coking of the fuel passages and maintain the structural integrity of the integral parts and particularly the weld joints and the method of construction is disclosed.

Growing community of inventors

South Windsor, CT, United States of America

Charles B Graves