Investigation of Gas-Turbine Afterburner with Aluminized Fuel-Rich Propellant

This paper describes the design and development of a compact afterburner system for a mini gas turbine engine using aluminized fuel-rich propellant. The working principle of the system is analogous to a dual combustor ramjet engine in which the propellant is burnt in the primary chamber. Hot gases from the primary chamber combust further in the secondary chamber with incoming air from the inlet. In this work, fuel-rich gases were injected into the afterburner through radially mounted gas generators. The hot gases mix with the oxygen-rich turbine exhaust and burn further, resulting in high-enthalpy gases. These high-enthalpy gases were expanded in the convergent nozzle to generate higher exit velocity. This study investigated the thrust enhancement capability of the gas turbine afterburner system with fuel-rich propellant grains at different operating conditions. Furthermore, the effect of increasing afterburner length and decreasing nozzle exit diameter on the performance of the system was also examined. An overall static thrust of about 320 and 360 N was obtained for three and four grains, respectively, with maximum unburnt fuel residues of 11% in both the cases, out of which four grain configurations achieved a maximum thrust enhancement of around 180%.