Combustor

A combustor is a component or area of a gas turbine, ramjet, or scramjet engine where combustion takes place. It is also known as a burner, combustion chamber or flame holder. In a gas turbine engine, the combustor or combustion chamber is fed high pressure air by the compression system. The combustor then heats this air at constant pressure. After heating, air passes from the combustor through the nozzle guide vanes to the turbine. In the case of a ramjet or scramjet engines, the air is directly fed to the nozzle.

A combustor must contain and maintain stable combustion despite very high air flow rates. To do so combustors are carefully designed to first mix and ignite the air and fuel, and then mix in more air to complete the combustion process. Early gas turbine engines used a single chamber known as a can type combustor. Today three main configurations exist: can, annular and cannular (also referred to as can-annular tubo-annular). Afterburners are often considered another type of combustor.

Combustors play a crucial role in determining many of an engine's operating characteristics, such as fuel efficiency, levels of emissions and transient response (the response to changing conditions such a fuel flow and air speed).

The objective of the combustor in a gas turbine is to add energy to the system to power the turbines, and produce a high velocity gas to exhaust through the nozzle in aircraft applications. As with any engineering challenge, accomplishing this requires balancing many design considerations, such as the following:

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Advancements in combustor technology focused on several distinct areas; emissions, operating range, and durability. Early jet engines produced large amounts of smoke, so early combustor advances, in the 1950s, were aimed at reducing the smoke produced by the engine. Once smoke was essentially eliminated, efforts turned in the 1970s to reducing other emissions, like unburned hydrocarbons and carbon monoxide (for more details, see the Emissions section below). The 1970s also saw improvement in combustor durability, as new manufacturing methods improved liner (see Components below) lifetime by nearly 100 times that of early liners. In the 1980s combustors began to improve their efficiency across the whole operating range; combustors tended to be highly efficient (99%+) at full power, but that efficiency dropped off at lower settings. Development over that decade improved efficiencies at lower levels. The 1990s and 2000s saw a renewed focus on reducing emissions, particularly nitrogen oxides. Combustor technology is still being actively researched and advanced, and much modern research focuses on improving the same aspects.

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