The influence of gas turbine combustor fluid mechanics on smoke emissions

This thesis describes an experimental program covering the development of certain simple combustion chamber modifications to alleviate smoke emissions from the Allison T56 turboprop engines operated by the Royal Australian Air Force. The work includes a literature survey, smoke emission tests on two variants of the T56 engine, flow visualisation studies of the combustion system in a water tunnel and combustion rig tests of a standard combustor and four possible modifications. The rig tests showed that reductions in smoke emissions of 80% were possible by simple modifications that reduced the primary zone equivalence ratio and improved mixing in that zone.