Analytical investigation on mixing characteristics of airfoil shaped swirler for gas turbine combustors

This paper presents a study on a novel axial flow swirler concept for gas turbine engines, which plays a crucial role in achieving desired air motion patterns with swirl. The main objective of this research is to enhance turbulence generation in the combustion chamber at the primary zone, and for this purpose, two swirler models were developed and investigated. The first swirler model is with a flat blade design without an airfoil, while the second model includes a curved blade with an airfoil factor, allowing for the variation of flow patterns. To estimate the flow recirculation induced by these two swirler designs, computational fluid dynamics simulations were carried out using Ansys Fluent. The simulations were regulated within restricted domains to accurately observe the flow behaviour. The analysis mainly focused on comparing and examining the contours created by the flat blade and curved blade swirler models. By analysing the results, it was feasible to identify the swirler design that displayed better flow recirculation. This observation is specifically significant as it directly contributes in reduction of NOx emissions in gas turbine engines.