Fuel injector

Abstract

A method of creating a swirling flow of fuel-lean premixed fuel and air without passage of the flow through swirler vanes is taught. A supply of fuel is mixed with a sufficient quantity of air to form a fuel-lean mixture. The mixture is passed tangentially into an annular flow passage creating a spiraling flow without bulk flow recirculation. The spiraling flow of fuel and air is passed into a combustion chamber. Reacting a fuel-rich mixture of fuel with air in the presence of a catalyst to produce heat and a reaction product may form the supply of fuel. The reaction product is mixed with air to form the fuel-lean fuel-air mixture and then the mixture is passed into an annular chamber in a direction nominally perpendicular to the chamber axis of rotation, thereby creating a flow rotating about the axis of rotation.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.