The Effects of Pilot Structure on the Lean Ignition Characteristics of the Internally Staged Combustor

Zhengyan Guo, Yan Lu, Jingtao Yuan, Pimin Chen, Qibin Zhang () and Wei Fan
Additional contact information
Zhengyan Guo: School of Power and Energy, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi’an 710129, China
Yan Lu: School of Power and Energy, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi’an 710129, China
Jingtao Yuan: School of Power and Energy, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi’an 710129, China
Pimin Chen: Department of Combustion Research, AECC Hunan Aviation Power Plant Research Institute, Zhuzhou 412002, China
Qibin Zhang: School of Power and Energy, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi’an 710129, China
Wei Fan: School of Power and Energy, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi’an 710129, China

Energies, 2025, vol. 18, issue 2, 1-18

Abstract: In order to explore the influence of pilot structure on the lean ignition characteristics in a certain type of internally staged combustor, the current study was conducted on the effects of the auxiliary fuel nozzle diameter, the rotating direction of the pilot swirler, and the swirl number on the lean ignition fuel–gas ratio limit, combining numerical simulation and experimental validation. The optimization potential of the mixing structure of this type of internally staged combustor was further explored. It indicated that the lean ignition fuel–gas ratio limit was significantly influenced by the diameter of the auxiliary fuel nozzles the swirl number of the pilot swirler and the combination of the same rotating direction for both pilot swirlers, while the mass flow rate of air was constant. Increasing the diameter of the auxiliary fuel path nozzles (0.4~0.6 mm) and having excessively higher or lower swirl numbers of the pilot module primary swirlers are not conducive to broadening the lean ignition boundary. Compared with the two-stage pilot swirler with the same rotation combination, the fuel–gas ignition performance of the two-stage pilot swirler with the opposite rotation combination is better. Under the typical working conditions (the air mass flow rate is 46.7 g/s and the ignition energy is 4 J), for a pilot swirler with a rotating direction opposite to the main swirler, the diameter of the auxiliary fuel nozzles is 0.2 mm, the swirl number of first-stage of pilot swirler is 1.4, and the lean ignition fuel–air ratio was reduced to 0.0121, which is 32.78% lower than the baseline scheme, which further broadens the lean ignition boundary of the centrally staged combustion chamber.

Keywords: internally staged combustor; optimized design of ignition performance; lean ignition boundary; the diameter of auxiliary fuel nozzle; pilot swirler (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/18/2/349/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/18/2/349/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jeners:v:18:y:2025:i:2:p:349-:d:1567099

Access Statistics for this article

Energies is currently edited by Ms. Agatha Cao

More articles in Energies from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().