Measurement of Smoke Particle Size and Distribution Within a Gas Turbine Combustor

The objective of the work described in this paper was to identify a method of making measurements of the smoke particle size distribution within the sector of a gas turbine combustor, using a Scanning Mobility Particle Sizing (SMPS) analyser. As well as gaining a better understanding of the combustion process, the principal reasons for gathering these data was so that they could be used as validation for Computational Fluid Dynamic (CFD) and chemical kinetic models. Smoke mass and gaseous emission measurements were also made simultaneously. A “water cooled,” gas sampling probe was utilised to perform the measurements at realistic operating conditions within a generic gas turbine combustor sector. Such measurements had not been previously performed and consequently initial work was undertaken to gain confidence in the experimental configuration. During this investigation, a limited amount of data were acquired from three axial planes within the combustor. The total number of test points measured were 45. Plots of the data are presented in 2 dimensional contour format at specific axial locations in addition to axial plots to show trends from the primary zone to the exit of the combustor. Contour plots of smoke particle size show that regions of high smoke number concentration once formed in zones close to the fuel injector persist in a similar spatial location further downstream. Axial trends indicate that the average smoke particle size and number concentration diminishes as a function of distance from the fuel injector. From a technical perspective, the analytical techniques used proved to be robust. As expected, making measurements close to the fuel injector proved to be difficult. This was because the quantity of smoke in the region was greater than 1000 mg/m³. It was found necessary to dilute the sample prior to the determination of the particle number concentration using SMPS. The issues associated with SMPS dilution are discussed.