Visualization and Fundamental Analysis of Liquid Atomization by Fuel Slingers in Small Gas Turbine Engines

There are strong engineering motivations for wanting to place the design of fuel slingers and the understanding of their performance on an improved technical foundation. To date, however, there have been no studies conducted at a fundamental level of the basic physical processes involved in fuel slinger operation, or of the design and performance rules that are implied by these. We present results from visualization experiments of liquid atomization in a variety of fuel slinger geometries over a range of operating conditions. These visualizations then lead to a fundamental technical analysis that develops broadly applicable design and performance rules for round-hole fuel slingers in small gas turbines. The results from this analysis provide excellent correlation of experimental data by Morishita (1981) on the atomization performance of gas turbine slingers for various combinations of slinger diameters, number of holes, hole sizes, liquid flow rates, and slinger rotation rates. The results provide a basis for understanding the performance of existing fuel slingers, for guiding the design of improved fuel slingers, and for pointing to potentially dramatic new improvements in fuel slinger technology for small gas turbines.