General Electric Company

Joseph Charles Taura

Bharat S Bagepalli

Mahmut Faruk Aksit

Robert James Bland

Daniel Ross Predmore

Mehmet Demiroglu

Richard Sterling Tuthill

William Theodore Bechtel

Guy Wayne DeLeonardo

Stephen Hugh Black

John Luigi Battaglioli

Jeffrey Arthur Benoit

Stefan Martin Meyer

A burner for use in a combustion system of a heavy-duty industrial gas turbine includes a fuel/air premixer having an air inlet, a fuel inlet, and an annular mixing passage. The fuel/air premixer mixes fuel and air into a uniform mixture for injection into a combustor reaction zone. The burner also includes an inlet flow conditioner disposed at the air inlet of the fuel/air premixer for controlling a radial and circumferential distribution of incoming air. The pattern of perforations in the inlet flow conditioner is designed such that a uniform air flow distribution is produced at the swirler inlet annulus in both the radial and circumference directions. The premixer includes a swozzle assembly having a series of preferably air foil shaped turning vanes that impart swirl to the airflow entering via the inlet flow conditioner. Each air foil contains internal fuel flow passages that introduce natural gas fuel into the air stream via fuel metering holes that pass through the walls of the air foil shaped turning vanes. By injecting fuel in this manner, an aerodynamically clean flow field is maintained throughout the premixer. By injecting fuel via two separate passages, the fuel/air mixture strength distribution can be controlled in the radial direction to obtain optimum radial concentration profiles for control of emissions, lean blow outs, and combustion driven dynamic pressure activity as machine and combustor load are varied.

Swozzle based burner tube premixer including inlet air conditioner for low emissions combustion

A seal assembly having a flexible cloth seal which includes a shim assemblage surrounded by a cloth assemblage. A first tubular end portion, such as a gas turbine combustor, includes a longitudinal axis and has smooth and spaced-apart first and second surface portions defining a notch therebetween which is wider at its top than at its bottom and which extends outward from the axis. The second surface portion is outside curved, and a first edge of the cloth seal is positioned in the bottom of the notch. A second tubular end portion, such as a first stage nozzle, is located near, spaced apart from, and coaxially aligned with, the first tubular end portion. The second tubular end portion has a smooth third surface portion which surrounds at least a portion of the first tubular end portion and which is contacted by the cloth seal.

Flexible cloth seal assembly

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Clifton Park, NY, United States of America

Joseph Charles Taura