Preliminary design and analysis of an afterburner module

Abstract

In this study, design calculations and calculations of afterburner used in jet engines are presented by evaluating the results of analytical and computational analysis. Afterburner inlet values of 1050 K temperature, 300 kPa pressure and 3.6 kg/s mass flow rate are taken as the design conditions. Maximum length and diameter are 500 mm and 200 mm, respectively, for the sections to be designed as length constraints within the scope of the conceptual design. The two-ring vee-gutter has 1.33 cm in diameter and 4.25 cm high. Jet A fuel is assumed to be injected into the core flow (90 degrees) from the spray bars. The spray is mounted in line with the vee-gutter to optimize the mixing of the flow. Analyses are performed for 4 cm between the spray bar and the vee-gutter. For the study, the GE J79 engine was examined from the literature and taken as a basis for the aerodynamic transition section design. Within the scope of TEKNOFEST 2023 Jet Engine Design Competition, a preliminary design of an afterburner module that can produce 700 pounds of thrust and has a life capacity of 25 hours should be realized in line with the design requirements and constraints. In the light of geometric constraints, one-dimensional combustion calculations of the module are made, and the parts are modelled using the relevant SolidWorks CAD program and these modelled parts are then transferred to ANSYS™ environment and the results and analyses are verified. The afterburner module flow analysis software program ANSYS™ is used to analyse the afterburner operation in both cold operating ranges (i.e. without combustion) using compressible, viscous and standard k-epsilon turbulence model. As a result, the effect of afterburner length on combustion performance is found to be significant. As a result of the calculations, afterburner length is found as 28.14 cm. It is found that the combustion efficiency is 81.5% and the temperature can be increased from 1050 K to 2044 K. The total pressure loss is 14.96% as pressure drop due to the geometric parameters and heat addition. The blockage ratio calculated due to the use of vee-gutter geometry is the most important parameter in the pressure drop. It is found that the jet engine producing 670 lbs (2981 N) of thrust when the afterburner is not working whereas it can provide a significant amount of power increment at the expense of a 50% increase in specific fuel consumption when the afterburner is active as well as providing a 738 lbs (3238 N) with a 10.1% thrust increase. The reason of the enhancement is mainly coming from the mixing effect of the vee-gutter on the flow structure.