Thermo-Efficiencies of a Tubular Combustor under Different Inlet Conditions

Abstract

Exergy efficiencies of the gas turbine become an important issue in recent years and by the way conducted studies regarding to this subject shows that the highest exergy destruction is observed in the combustor and afterburner modules. Therefore it is beneficial to perform analyses that are specific to the combustor exergy efficiency. This study includes the energy ?cc $\left( {{\eta -{cc}}} \right)$ and exergy efficiencies ?ex $\left( {{\eta -{ex}}} \right)$ (thermo-efficiencies) of a tubular combustor for different inlet conditions. Both of the first law and second law efficiencies have been performed on the experimental data and efficiency trends are investigated for changing aerodynamic conditions. Combustor tests have been conducted in an atmospheric test rig and combustor air inlet temperature T03 $\left( {{T-{03}}} \right)$ , air mass flow rate ?a $\left( {{{\dot m}-a}} \right)$ and fuel mass flow rate ?f $\left( {{{\dot m}-f}} \right)$ have been set for the pre-defined conditions. Moreover, exhaust gas emissions were measured by using a gas analyzer system. In the study, highest energy and exergy efficiencies have been obtained at minimum aerodynamic loading condition as 99.0% and 70.2% respectively. Moreover efficiencies have the lowest value as 92.7% and 54.0% at the maximum aerodynamic loading condition. To summarize, this study aims to show the energy and exergy trends by changing inlet conditions of a tubular combustor in the atmospheric test rig