Effect of Slot Injection and Effusion Array on the Liner Heat Transfer Coefficient of a Scaled Lean-Burn Combustor with Representative Swirling Flow

International standards regarding polluting emissions from civil aircraft engines are becoming gradually even more stringent. Nowadays, the most prominent way to meet the target of reducing NOx emissions in modern aero-engine combustors is represented by lean-burn technology. Swirl injectors are usually employed to provide the dominant flame stabilization mechanism coupled to high-efficiency fuel atomization solutions. These systems generate very complex flow structures, such as recirculations, vortex breakdown, and processing vortex core, which affect the distribution and therefore the estimation of heat loads on the gas side of the liner as well as the interaction with the cooling system flows. The main purpose of the present work is to provide detailed measurements of heat transfer coefficient (HTC) on the gas side of a scaled combustor liner highlighting the impact of the cooling flows injected through a slot system and an effusion array. Furthermore, for a deeper understanding of the interaction phenomena between gas and cooling flows, a standard two-dimensional (2D) particle image velocimetry (PIV) technique has been employed to characterize the combustor flow field. The experimental arrangement has been developed within EU project LEMCOTEC and consists of a nonreactive three sectors planar rig installed in an open-loop wind tunnel. Three swirlers, replicating the real geometry of a GE Avio partially evaporated and rapid mixing (PERM) injector technology, are used to achieve representative swirled flow conditions in the test section. The effusion geometry is composed by a staggered array of 1236 circular holes with an inclination of 30 deg, while the slot exit has a constant height of 5 mm. The experimental campaign has been carried out using a thermochromic liquid crystals (TLCs) steady-state technique with a thin Inconel heating foil and imposing several cooling flow conditions in terms of slot coolant consumption and effusion pressure drop. A data reduction procedure has been developed to take into account the nonuniform heat generation and the heat loss across the liner plate. Results in terms of 2D maps and averaged distributions of HTC have been supported by flow field measurements with 2D PIV technique focussed on the corner recirculation region.