As part of the EU funded project AEROJET2, a number of gas turbine engine tests were performed in different facilities around Europe. At Farnborough, UK a Spey engine was used to test a suite of prototype optically based instrumentation designed to measure exhaust gas emissions without using extractive probe systems. In addition to the AEROJET 2 prototype instrumentation, a Bruker Equinox 55 Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectrometer was used to obtain infrared spectra of the exhaust plume both in emission and absorption mode.
The Bruker FTIR spectrometer was fitted with a periscope system so that different lines of sight could be monitored in the plume in a vertical plane 25 cm downstream from the nozzle exit and 20 cm upstream of the center line of sight of the AEROJET 2 prototype instrumentation. DERA (now QinetiQ) provided exhaust gas analysis data for different engine running conditions using samples extracted from the plume with an intrusive probe. The probe sampled along a horizontal plane across the centerline of the engine 45 cm downstream of the nozzle exit. The Bruker spectrometer used both InSb (indium antimonide) and MCT (mercury-cadmium-telluride) detectors to maximize the sensitivity across the IR range 600-4000 cm-1.
Typically, CO2 and H2O IR signatures dominate the observed spectra of the plume. However, the engine tests showed that at low power engine conditions spectral features associated with CO around 2147 cm-1 and with hydrocarbons could be observed at around 3000 cm-1. In particular the presence of ethene (C2H2) was detected from observation of its characteristic in and out of plane vibration mode at 949 cm-1. At high engine powers the presence of NO was detected at 1900.3 cm-1. Species concentrations were calculated using a slab model for each line of sight compared against reference spectra. The engine plume was assumed to be symmetric about the centerline. On this basis, data from the extractive sampling gas analysis that had been obtained by traversing the probe across a horizontal plane through the centerline could be compared with non-intrusive measurements made by scanning vertically. Adjustments have been made to account for the 20 cm downstream offset in measurement planes of the probe and the spectrometer behind the nozzle exit.
The aim of their work is to develop non-intrusive methods to determine the presence of unburnt hydrocarbons in the emissions from aero-engine combustion systems. In addition to the detection of UHCs for legal certification of aero-engine performance, the consequences of their release into the upper atmosphere has environmental considerations.
Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy was used to investigate the IR spectral absorption of soot particles from a Palas smoke generator. A TSI Condensation Particle Counter was used to quantify the number of soot particles produced and this was related to the intensity of the IR absorption. The broad band IR absorption increases with soot particle count but quantitative measurements of total soot mass were not obtained because accurate size distributions of the particles were not available. A sample of gas turbine engine exhaust gas was analyzed by Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectroscopy to determine the primary constituent unburnt hydrocarbon (UHC) species. Their relative proportions were measured with a Flame Ionization Detector (FID). These species are predominantly unsaturated C2 to C6 hydrocarbons. The infrared absorption spectrum of the exhaust gas sample was compared with that of combustion products from a laboratory kerosene burner using a multipass White cell. These were also compared with reference spectra and IR spectra of UHCs obtained non-intrusively from gas turbine engine tests. There are IR spectral band shape differences indicating that the relative proportions of the constituent UHCs in gas turbine exhaust are different from those in a kerosene burner plume.
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