Fuel nozzle
AssigneePratt & Whitney Canada Corp.
InventorsYen-Wen Wang, Nigel Davenport
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A fuel nozzle for a combustor of a gas turbine engine includes a body defining an axial direction and a radial direction, an air passageway defined axially in the body, and a fuel passageway defined axially in the body radially outwardly from the air passageway. The air passageway has a swirl-inducing relief defined at an exit lip of an outer wall of the air passageway. A gas turbine engine and a method of inducing swirl in an air passageway of a fuel nozzle of a gas turbine engine are also presented.
Claims10
A fuel nozzle for a combustor of a gas turbine engine, the fuel nozzle comprising:
- a body defining an axial direction and a radial direction, the body defining an air passageway and a fuel passageway each extending axially through the fuel nozzle, the air passageway being centrally disposed within the body and the fuel passageway being annular and disposed radially outward of the air passageway, the body accommodated within an annular duct having a converging section at a downstream end thereof and terminating at an exit lip of the fuel nozzle, a mixing zone defined within the converging section of the annular duct downstream of the body;
- and
- the air passageway having a swirl-inducing relief defined at an exit of an outer wall of the air passageway upstream of the mixing zone, the swirl-inducing relief including a plurality of helicoidal grooves formed into an inner surface of the outer wall of the air passageway.
A gas turbine engine comprising:
- a combustor;
- and
- a plurality of fuel nozzles disposed inside the combustor, each of the fuel nozzles including:
- a body defining an axial direction and a radial direction, the body accommodated within an annular duct having a converging section at a downstream end thereof and terminating at an exit lip of the fuel nozzle, a mixing zone defined within the converging section of the annular duct downstream of the body;
- an air passageway extending axially through the body at a center thereof;
- and
- a fuel passageway extending axially through the body radially outwardly from the air passageway, the air passageway having a swirl-inducing relief at an exit lip of an outer wall of the air passageway, the swirl-inducing relief including a plurality of helicoidal grooves formed into an inner surface of the outer wall of the air passageway to induce swirl to an air flow exiting the air passageway and entering the mixing zone.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.