US 4,819,438 AGranted

Steam cooled rich-burn combustor liner

AssigneeUnited States of America

InventorDonald F. Schultz

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Abstract

An object of the invention is to cool a rich burn combustor without extracting excessive amounts of heat and to use the extracted heat. In accordance with the invention, a combustor (10) having a primary combustor (12) and a secondary combustor (13) with a throat (20) between them is provided with a jacket including a wall (27) radially outwardly of a wall (14) of the primary combustor (12). Steam is injected into a manifold (33) at the throat end of combustor (12) and flows in a plurality of spiral paths through the space between walls (14) and (27) to an outlet manifold (32) at the other end of combustor (12) becoming superheated. The superheated steam is employed to drive a stream utilization device. The spiral steam flow paths are established by barriers (38) wound in spiral fashion on the outside of wall (14) of the combustor (12). Another object is to minimize stress on the wall (14) of the primary combustor (12). Thus, the steam pressure in inlet manifold (33), is approximately the same as the combustor discharge pressure at throat (20) and annular expansion tubes (30) and (31) minimize stresses in the jacket comprised of walls (27), (28), and (29). The second combustor (13) accomplishes lean burning of the gases discharged from primary combustor (12). The combination of the rich burning of heavy fuels followed by lean burning minimizes the NOx in the exhaust gas discharged from combustor (13).

Claims7

Dependent claims

A combustor system including a primary rich burn section having a liner and followed by one or more lean burn sections and comprising:

a cylindrical jacket disposed outwardly of said combustor rich burn section liner to form an annular space;
a plurality of barriers disposed in said annular space, each barrier being in the form of a spiral, thereby forming a plurality of spiral passageways;
a first annular manifold disposed at one end of said rich burn section liner adjacent said one lean burn section and communicating with said annular space;
a second annular manifold disposed at the other end of said rich burn section liner and communicating with said annular space;
and
means for directing steam into said first manifold at a pressure approximately equal to the discharge pressure of said rich burn section, said steam flowing in a plurality of spiral streams through said annular space into said second annular manifold, said barriers being attached to said liner and wherein said jacket does not sealingly contact said barriers when said rich burn section of said combustor is not operating but does when said combustor is operating, and wherein said combustor liner has a first conical section at one end adjacent said one lean burn section and a second conical section at its other end, said jacket including first and second conical jacket sections outside of said first and second combustor liner sections, respectively, said conical jacket sections being separated from said cylindrical jacket section by first and second annular gaps, and first and second annular expansion tubes enclosing said first and second gaps, respectively.

3 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.