The design and testing of a can-type combustor in a compressor test rig

Abstract

In order to increase the power of a blowdown, turbine driven compressor test rig, a combustor was designed to insert in the flow before the turbine. The combustor was required to provide 800K output temperature in order to achieve this. The combustor was designed for two conditions, 1) a start-up regime and 2) a target design point. Using the NREC preliminary combustor design method, a can-type combustor was designed. During the design process, the various method of temperature prediction resulted in 3 different outlet plane temperatures. In order to enable future confidence in the design method used, an experiment was setup to determine which models more closely represent reality. The temperature at the outlet plane was measured using a thermocouple rake during the running of the combustor in the test rig. It was found that the AFT Graph temperature predictions were the closest to the experimental data however; the results depend on the method for predicting the efficiency. It is recommended that a future experimental study be performed in order to confirm the best efficiency model using emissions measurements.