Gas turbine engine combustion system

Abstract

A gas turbine engine includes a combustion main chamber into which opens one end of an upstream combustion pre-chamber having a burner face at its opposite end. A swirler assembly has a plurality of generally tangentially extending swirler vanes circumferentially spaced by passages disposed about a center and along which combustion air follows radially inward paths into the pre-chamber. Each passage is provided with a respective liquid fuel injection nozzle including an electrode to be electrostatically charged so each injection nozzle can impart electrostatic charge to droplets of fuel emerging from the nozzles to travel with the combustion air into the pre-chamber. Walls of the passages comprise electrodes which can be charged to the same polarity as the charged fuel. The burner face is preferably formed of two or three electrodes, one being a central electrode at opposite polarity to the charge on the fuel and at least one other electrode surrounding the central electrode and at the same polarity as the charge on the fuel. The pre-chamber has a wall also forming an electrode which may be charged at the same polarity as the charge on the fuel droplets. The disposition of the electrostatic charge in the apparatus promotes fuel atomizing and keeps the fuel off the walls of the passage and off the burner face while attracting or biasing the fuel towards the center of the burner face and pushes the fuel toward the center of the pre-chamber.