Numerical Modeling of Lean Spray Lifted Flames in Inclined Multi-Burner Arrangements

Modern combustors operate with lean mixtures to prevent Nitrogen oxides (NOx) formation by limiting the peaks of the temperature inside the combustion chamber. One of the main drawbacks of these technologies is the higher risk of Lean Blow-Off (LBO) compared to the state-of-art Rich Quench Lean combustors. To limit this possibility, combustor designers introduced pioneering concepts for this component. In this fashion, the CHAiRLIFT (Compact Helical Arranged combustoRs with lean LIFTed flames) concept founds its advantages in the structure of the combustion chamber. It combines two concepts: the tilting of the burner’s axis relative to the engine axis with a low-swirl lifted spray flame. Here, the combustion can be stabilized at very low equivalence ratios thanks to the interaction between consecutive burners. A numerical analysis was carried out to support the experimental campaign aiming to investigate the performance of the burner under different tilting angles for the burners. Two-phase simulations of the CHAiRLIFT full rig burner were performed in the commercial CFD suite ANSYS Fluent and the results were compared with the available experimental data. Furthermore, a deeper sensitivity to the tilting angle was conducted through the introduction of specific performance parameters to assess the performance and to seek the best promising setup. The outcomes have shown that tilt angles between 20° and 30° could lead to an improvement of the exhaust recirculation, regarding the considered operating conditions.