Investigations of a Staged Fuel Nozzle for Aeroengines by Multi-Sector Combustor Test

The reduction of NOx emissions from aeroengines is very important to protect the local air quality near the airports and prevent the climate change. ICAO CAEP has been stepped up the NOx standard frequently. Therefore, the engine manufacturers and national research institutes are actively working on the low-NOx technologies to meet the lower NOx emissions standard. JAXA is conducting research and development of the aeroengine technologies for the environmental adaptation in the TechCLEAN project. As a part of the project, combustion technologies have been developed with an aggressive target that is an 80% NOx reduction of CAEP/4. For the drastic reduction of NOx emissions, the fuel nozzles were designed based on the lean staged combustion concept. At first, five fuel nozzles were tested in a single-sector combustor at LTO cycle conditions of small aeroengine and it was confirmed that one fuel nozzle enabled 72% NOx reduction of CAEP/4. This lean low NOx fuel nozzle was tested in the present work in a multi-sector combustor at the same conditions with the single-sector combustor test. Test results showed that the combustor had combustion characteristics enabling 70% NOx reduction of CAEP/4, which was almost same with the single-sector combustor. For the improvement of combustion efficiency at middle power conditions, fuel staging among the main fuel injectors was also investigated at the MCL condition. The results showed that the fuel staging among the main fuel nozzles is effective to improve the combustion efficiency of the annular combustor.Copyright © 2010 by ASME