Development of an augmented conceptual design tool for aircraft gas turbine combustors

Abstract

Combustor design is the most unreliable and challenging portion in the design process of a gas turbine. To ensure the proper performance, many experimental tests must be performed on a combustor in the industry. The above mentioned design phase is costly and time consuming. This paper focused on an automated and augmented conceptual design methodology for conventional combustors. The design tool developed for this study employs empirical and semi-empirical models which include two main parts of the combustor, the reference diameter and area as well as the component design. The necessity of this work arose from an urgent need for comprehensive and fast generation data in the conceptual design phase of a combustion chamber. This automated and comprehensive tool, equipped with the capacity to provide many details, has a considerable impact on the reduction of further experimental effort. Also, the said tool is equipped with a geometrical model generation section that has application in the future design phases, e.g., detail design.