59592 - Recursive Sequential Combustion: A Concept Study About a Momentum-Enhanced Blend of the Reactants With Recirculated Burnt Gases 

Over the last decade, an emerging concept promotes a significant azimuthal flow in annular combustors of gas turbines. These concepts are for instance the short helix combustor patented and published by Ariatabar et al., or novel hot core arrangements patented by Savary et al. (diffuser) or Toqan et al. (burners oriented with a strong incidence angle to promote the azimuthal component of the flow). The benefits are a better flame propagation at ignition, a positive flame-flame interaction, as well as a better interaction with the burnt gases. Other advantages in terms of dimension, congestion and turbine entry flow conditionning are also of importance. The technical difficulties reported are related to the higher thermal stress exerted by the flames on the walls as in comparison to a conventional frame.

This contribution focuses on a novel burner arrangement inspired by previous, and making use of additive manufacturing. The company Combustion Bay One e.U. (CBOne) has gained experience in designing and testing novel swirler shapes (GT2018-7165), or full-integrated AM burners (GT2019-90720). Logically, the next step is the design of a combustor manufactured additively, looking for synergies between the principles of AM and the concepts discussed before. Additive manufacturing can help to arrange the flow so that the walls are protected from the flame in a very compact arrangement, playing with the inlet and outlet flow dynamics. The paper reports about the concept, the design, and the early results in terms of modelling and testing. The project MOeBIUS (MOmentum-Enhanced Blend of the reactants with recIrculated bUrnt gaseS) is realised by CBOne and supported financially by the Austrian Research Promotion Agency (FFG).