Inlet air cleaner assembly for turbine engines

An inlet air cleaner assembly for the air intake of gas turbine engines comprising, in combination, a housing having a gas inlet and a fluid flow connection from the gas inlet to the air intake;

• a gas outlet and a fluid flow connection from the gas outlet to the gas turbine engine;
• the inlet and outlet and fluid connections therewith being arranged for flow therethrough of air carrying heavier and lighter contaminant particles and aerosol-borne particles;
• and, disposed across the line of gas flow from the gas inlet to the gas outlet, a first array of vortex air cleaners removing coarse and heavy contaminant particles, but not light and well-dispersed contaminant particles, and comprising a plurality of vortex cleaners having a straight tubular air cleaner body with a cylindrical central passage therethrough and an inlet and an outlet at opposite ends, and a deflector adjacent the inlet for creating a vortex stream in the influent air to concentrate contaminant particles in the air at the periphery of the passage, and provide a core of air at the center of the passage containing lighter and aerosol-borne contaminant particles, and an outlet member having a central core air passage communicating with the cylindrical central passage of the tubular body and disposed within the passage at the outlet, the exterior wall of the outlet member defining a generally annular contaminant scavenge passage with the cylindrical central passage of the tubular body through which pass contaminant particles, while core air at the center of the passage passes through the central core air passage of the outlet member;
• and a second array of sheets of filamentary woven or nonwoven material, arranged to receive partially cleaned air from the vortex air cleaner array, and remove finely divided solid contaminant particles too light in weight or too well dispersed in air to be separated, and liquid droplets so finely divided as to constitute stable aerosols and mists, and comprising a plurality of superimposed sheets of filamentary material defining passages therethrough from face to face of the array, arranged in flow communication with the core air passages of the outlet members of the vortex air cleaners in the first array, the array having a depth within the range from about 0.5 to about 10 inches, the sheets comprising monofilaments having a diameter within the range from about 0.005 to about 0.035 inch, and being compressed substantially throughout this surface area to a maximum pore diameter below about 5 mm under a pressure within the range from about 1 to about 100 psi, such that the pressure drop across a 1.63 ft.sup.2 portion of the array at a standard air flow of 2930 cfm at 25.degree. C. is within the range from about 0.5 to about 3 inches water column, the filaments at the interface of the interior layers being in pressure contact with each other substantially throughout by such compression.