The flow in a gas turbine combustor is comprised of regions of recirculating flow, strong streamline curvature, adverse pressure gradient, developing boundary layers and impingement flow. Such a flow structure coupled with complex geometric configuration makes the analysis of combustor flows quite difficult especially by experimental methods. The difficulties have led to the development of multidimensional computational methods for analyzing such complex flows, using powerful computers.
The main aim of this work is to carry out a 2-D flow field analysis inside an annular gas turbine combustor using a general-purpose computer package called FLUENT. The numerical calculations are performed using Semi Implicit Method for Pressure linked Equation (SIMPLE) based algorithm with body fitted coordinates and unstructured grid arrangement. The general structure of the flow field has been compared with the available experimental results from flow visualization studies.
From the present study it is concluded that the two-dimensional model can be used with confidence for optimizing the geometry of the gas turbine combustor in the development stage. The estimate of static pressure recovery agree reasonably well with available experimental data. However, the predicted pressure loss is less due to non-incorporation of support strut, atomizer and atomizer mount in the numerical model, as these blockages also contribute to the pressure loss.