Experimental research of the performance of the trapped-vortex combustor

Trapped-vortex combustor(TVC) is a novel and compact gas turbine combustor with two pilot zones and a main zone.The pilot zone utilizes cavities to establish the recirculation zone needed for stable combustion,and the main zone is for power.In the research,inlet air pressure was fixed;with different inlet temperatures and inlet air flowrates,experiments were conducted to study TVC performance including pressure loss,ignition limit,lean blowout limit(LBO) and combustion efficiency.Experimental result shows total pressure loss increases from 3%～6% vary with increasing the inlet Mach number of the main zone,the flow drag coefficient is 24～25 which changes little with the inlet air flowrate.Ignition limit and LBO is independent on the inlet air flowrate,and improves with increasing inlet temperature from 300 to 500 K.The fuel/air ratio of ignition limit and LBO is 0.011 and 0.004 5 respectively.When cavity is fueled only,the combustion efficiency of TVC is 90%～95%.When the cavity and main zone are fueled together,the efficiency increases(84%～99.5%) with decreasing the fuel/air ratio.