Parametric Modeling Approach to Gas Turbine Combustor Design

Abstract

Recent advances in CAD/CAE based design tools have not only enabled the automation of parametric sensitivity analyses involving aero, thermal and structural calculations necessary for gas turbine combustor life predictions, but have also minimized the analysis cycle time required to perform such parametric analyses. Concepts involved in development of the parametric models for geometry creation, grid generation and unstructured Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulations of a gas turbine combustor are discussed. In addition, the advantages of utilizing the parametric geometry and analysis models in parametric sensitivity studies of combustor aero analysis are demonstrated. A CAD-based parametric master model for 3-D solid feature creation and aero-analysis parametric models were developed for a modern GE single annular aircraft gas turbine combustor. Using these parametric models, a matrix of geometries was generated to define the computational domain for performing a parametric sensitivity study involving aero analysis, for combustor exit temperature predictions. The present combustor parametric aero-analysis considers the effects of the location of dilution holes and film slots in the combustor inner and outer liner components on the gas turbine combustor exit temperature profiles. Comparisons of the predicted combustor exit temperatures with available test data for an 18° annular sector are presented.