Interturbine Burners Ignite Quest for Fuel-Efficient Engines

  • Published
  • By Tom Brown
  • Propulsion
WRIGHT-PATTERSON AIR FORCE BASE, Ohio --  The successful demonstration of Small Business Innovation Research-enabled interturbine burners in an FJ44-3 engine furthers the ITB technology's viability towards improved operational versatility of gas turbines for a variety of military systems, including manned and unmanned aircraft and missiles. Specifically, ITBs increase fuel efficiency via adjustments to the thermodynamic cycle and optimization of the main combustor's capacity for partial-power operation. Such efficiency improvements can translate to longer flight, greater payload and/or fuel capacity, and reduced aircraft operation costs.

The Phase II SBIR effort--completed by a team of Creare, Inc.; Williams International; and AFRL propulsion engineers--marks the first-ever demonstration of an ITB with a WI engine. The burner achieved successful light off at 32,000 rpm; 34,000 rpm; and 36,000 rpm N2 [core compressor spool rotational] speeds, back-to-back trials that generated emissions results and other significant data. The demonstration revealed that ignition events occurred below the target fuel flows and also confirmed that the ITB stays lit and stable with the igniter off at all conditions considered.