Al AA-87-1830

High Performance Turbofan

Afterburner Systems
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A. Sotheran, Rolls-Royce plc, Filton,

Bristol, England

AIA N S A E M S M E/AS EE 23rd Joint

Propulsion Conference
June 29-July 2, 1987/San Diego, California
t' '

For permission to copy or republish, contact the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics
1633 Broadway, New York, NY 10019
 HIGH PERFORMANCE W O F A N AFTERBURNER
SYS!CEMS
A Sotheran*
Rolls-Royce plc
Filtun, Eristol
Enaland
Abstract
The modern turbofan afterburner is rearward direction. Far from providing
characterised by its high boost and the propulsive forward thrust of the
efficiency and by its compact geometry engine, the nozzle is actually a drag on
which is achieved by locating the the installation. Some of this drag is,
flameholding baffles immediately of course, recovered when a divergent
downstream of the turbine exhaust plane second stage is provided to the nozzle
at the confluence of the engine core and but this never amounts to more than a
bypass gas streams. At the confluence, small proportion of the rearward force.
the stream divider mav be a simule The value of afterburning to the engine
cylinder o r it may be of lobed cycle is that, by increasing the volume
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configuration to encourage mixing of the turbine exhaust gases, it

between the two ga,s streams in the provides an extra, or, more usually, an
downstream jet pipe in order to improve alternative means to throttle the engine
the unboosted thrust of the engine. airflow which incurs no drag penaity and
Obviously the geometry of the is easily varied and very powerful in
afterburncr hardware must be adapted to its effect. The simplest use of an
suit the choice of mixed or unmixed afterburner is to slightly uprate an
configurations. In flight, selection of engine provided with only a fixed
the afterburner must be fast and mechanical nozzle. The resulting
reliable under all flight conditions additional thrust is approximately what
with times tu full thrust of the order would be obtained. without afterburning,
of oniy a second or two. Both the by the use of a smaller nozzle DUt
light up and the subsequent acceleration without incurring the additional drag of
to full thrust are expected to be smooth the small nozzle. The degree of boost
with no excessive initiai thrust jump. achievable in this way, if any, depends
Synchronisation and matching of the on the particular characteristics of the
afterburner fuel with the variable final engine turbomachinery and on tne
v
nozzle must be accurate ac all times eo vrevailina fliaht condition. At best.
maintain the enaine turbomachinerv on it is restrictkd to low values. Hign
ics rcq,iired runninq lines. T1.C boost afterburners may use this minor
afrersurrsx musr always oe free of effect, when it is effective, but their
combustion driven pressure oscillations chief purpose is to provide compensatory
which can occur either in cross stream thermal throttling of the engine whilst
modes, which destroy engine hardware in the variable nozzle, which is an
fractions of a second, or in essential adjunct to a high Doost
longitudinal modes which can also be system, is progressively opened to hian
mechanically damaging and, in some degrees. The object of opening the
instances, cause fan surge and other nozzle is, of course, to reduce its drag
intolerable effects in the engine. The and it is this reduction in nozzle arag
afterDurner must incorporate appropriate which is the source of atterburner
measures to avoid various potential boost.
thermal problems including fuel boiling
and gumming in the supply manifolds and It is obviously not necessary that the
excessive heat transfer to the jet pipe degree of afterburning provided should
and aircraft engine bay. always precisely compensate for che
nozzle opening, that is to exactly
maintain the turbomachinery on the Same
Introduction running line whether the afterburner is
on or off. There is often a fuel
The so-called 'propelling' nozzle of a consumption or thrust advantage in
jet engine is somewhat misnamed since operating the boosted engine either
its function is to act as a throttle on under or over restorea relative to the
the engine air flow to estabiish the unboosted case, that is as if operating
engine turbomachinery on its required "dry" (unboosted) with a relatively
running lines, and the aerodynamic larger or smaller nozzle. The
forces acting on ic are always in tne 'equivalenc dry nozzle area' or EDNA
value, expressed as a percentage
*Chief of Combustion Technology deviation from the unboosted nozzle
Copyriqht @ 1987 by Rolls-Royce plc. area, is a convenient means to indicate
Published by the Merican Institutf far the prevailing engine or fan runninq
AeronaUtics and Astronautics. Inc. with line in the boosted case.
v pcmission

1
 There is a further option, whenever
afterburning is selected, of increasing loss O f
mixer 1%1
the ensine thrust bv a core enaine
"throttie push" that *is by increaging
the turbine entry temperature. The term
"afterburner boost" is sometimes used t.0
indicate the total (engine plus
afterburner) increase in thrust between
afterburner on and afterburner off hut
in this paper it denotes only the
contribution from the afterburner and is
quoted as a percentage of the prevailing
"dry thrust" of the engine, that is the
thrust which the engine would deliver if
it were operating without afterburning
but at the same turbine entry Figure 2 1.50% /
temperature and with its nozzle set at The mix-then-burn afterburner achieves
the prevailinq EDNA value. its objectives fairly satisfactorily but
Afterburner Configurations at the expense of a relatively long jet
pipe. It has also proved to be prone to
The earliest Rolls-Royce turbofan the instability known as afterburner
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afterburners (Figure 1 ) were termed buzz or rumble. to which t u r b o f a n

~~~~

mix-then-burn systems because they afterburners are particularly

featured a stream mixer, of about one susceptible, at intermediate to high
jet pipe diameter in lcngth, between the levels of boost. In fact the boost which
cngine and the afterburner proper. Its is safely available from thc
purpose was to mix the turbine and mix-then-burn afterburner 1s limited by
bypass gas streams ahead of the the appearance of buzz and the fuel
flameholders to avoid the obvious and, schedule has to be set down accordingly.
at the time, novel problems o€ promoting Buzz is a longitudinal "organ pipe"
burning in the cold gases of the engine pressure oscillation which can become
bypass stream. Instead, similar cstablished between either the fan or
flamcholding and fuel injection the turbine and tho nozzle with
arrangements to those used in earlier frequencies between about 5 0 and 150 iiz
turbojet aftcrburncr systems were depending on thc type of buzz
prov.idcd and thcsc, it was anticipated, cstablished, the flight condition, the
would bc appropriate for operation in afterburner fuelling lcvel and so on.
what was intended to be a fully mixed Its causes and avoidance are discusscd
gas stream at near turbojet in later sections.
tcmpcratures.
By~paSSair flow Chute Heat shield ,Nozzle operating In the next afterburner evaluated at
\ /mixer \ BleeYe Rolls-Royce, a stream mixing arranqemcnt
was retained but, to save engine lcngth
and weight , a flameholder systcm was
chosen which could double as the stream
mixer in the afterburner off case. In
this paper this system is referrcd to as
the "mix-and-burn system". The
mix-and-burn afterburner system uses an
adaptation of a cold stream burner
5ection Q r O p e h g nDllle device which has been employed in
Figure 1 various applications in Rolls-Royce
Stream mixing can, of course, be a engines, for instance in ramjets and in
thermodynamic benefit to the engine "PCB", for boosting the front nozzle
cycle in itself but its value at thrust of the Pegasus vectored thrust
military engine bypass ratios depends engine (Reference 11. In its
strongly on the aircraft application in afterburner configuration the
which the enaine is emuloved. Whilst
~~

the mixing always gives a constant if

. ~~~~
~~~~~ ~ mix-and-burn system features a pilot
burner at the downstream end of the
modest improvement in the engine dry splitter which divides the bypass and
thrust, any additional pressure losses turbine streams at turbine exhaust
which the mixer generates result in a (Figure 3 ) . The pilot is a simple
thrust deficit which is variable with ~~~~~~ ~ ~~ annular gutter and is separately fuelled
flight condition and which can more than by direct injection into its wake
eliminate the mixing benefits through a variation of the "vaporiser"
(Figure 2). The pressure loss deficit fuel injector employed in Rolls-Royce
is a strong function of nozzle pressure military core combustors (Reference 2 ) .
ratio but is not important, for The distinguishing feature of the
instance, during high altitude, high mix-and-burn afterburner is a system of
speed flight. In applications in which Vee-shaped "longerons" which extend from
this flight mode dominates the use of the annular pilot across the bypass
mixing could clearly be beneficial. stream at a narrow angle to the flow

2
 (Reference 3 ) . The wakes of the ahead of the flames, the fuel droplets
longerons are contiguous with that of tend to remain unevaporated, and to move
the annular pilot and hence fill with ballistically, that is without following
flame whenever pilot fuel is selected. the gas stream around bends and
The main bypass stream fuel injectors obstacles in the flow so that their
arc located in the slots between the trajectories are always uncertain and
-/ longerons, with the flames in the often end in impact with the duct walls
longerons acting as the ignition source or with other hardware. For this
for this fuel. For the turbine stream, reason, in Rolls-Royce cold stream
an arrangement of plain V-baffles with burners, the fuel injectors are usually
upstream fuel injectors is employed. located between rather uinstream of the
Pi107 Mushrwm flameholders, which would-otherwise tend
fuel "BpIdIJel to operate awash with liquid fuel, so
that the fuel is injected directly into
the burning zones. However, an
inevitable consequence of "direct" fuel
injection, from between the flameholders
rather than ahead of them, is that the
flameholder wake flames need to be
provided with their own separate supply
of fuel (Figure 4). The use of "wake"
and "fill" fuel stages is another
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feature of all Rolls-Royce cold stream

I
burners to date.
Pipe wall
-.01 midway -. flameholderr
-. -.between -.
Figure 3 Fill fuel injector axially locaved
With afterburner off, the action of the 10 amid wening the flameholder
bypass stream longerons is to turn the Radially located to fuel Direction of
the mk? over region name spread
flow radially inwards through an angle
dependent on the angle and
circumferential blockage they present to
the approaching flow. Meanwhile, the
turbine stream gases tend to lift
outwards into the wakes of the
longerons, thus generating a large
interface between the two streams to
encourage the required high level of
stream mixing. Mixing efficiencies of
the order of 8 5 % are measured for this Figure 4 Gas stream
system at the engine nozzle which is In the case of the mix-and-burn
about 1.25 pipe diameters from the end afterburner, when the main bypass stream
of the stream mixer. fuel is injected into the system from
between the longerons, it immediately
The burning performance of the assumes the radially inward motion of
mix-and-burn system is high and, in the local gas stream and, despite the
terms of both boost and efficiency, fact that the fuel enters the flame and
matches that of the earlier must evaporate very quickly, significant
mix-then-burn configuration fairly proportions of it continue towards the
closely. However, once again centre of the jet pipe when the bypass
afterburner buzz imposes an upper limit gases, in which they are intended to
to the thrust which can be safely burn, turn axially rearward towards the
extracted from the system and, although nozzle. The measured effect of this is
this is very high, it is believed that a concentration of fuel on the jet pipe
this system could never deliver the centre line which, coupled with the
near stoichiometric nozzle temperatures incomplete mixina of the aas streams at
which are targeted for modern the upstream end-of the jet pipe, leads
afterburners. Accordingly, the to very high local values of fuelfair
mix-and-burn afterburner has never been ratios and, as further explained in. the
developed beyond a short programme of next section. the relative wroneness to
exploratory engine and full scale rig afterburner buzz already mentioned. As
evaluations. an alternative to the mix-and-burn
system and especially when there is no
The cause of the mix-and-burn system's operational advantage in stream mixing,
proneness to afterburner buzz is it is advantageous to dispense with
believed to be a strong inward migration mixing altogether in order to ensure the
of the bypass stream fuel into the aerodynamic conditions and the control
turbine stream, which is generated in over fuel movements which are needed to
the first place by the cross-duct best ensure that buzz is avoided. The
movements of the two gas streams. most recent Rolls-Royce afterburners are
Accurate fuel placement and control of of this type and are designed
fuel movements are always difficult to specifically to discourage stream
achieve in cold stream burners since, mixing. However, despite the measures

3
 taken to avoid forcing the mixing,
significant amounts nevertheless occur
due to natural diffusion of the streams
into each other. Because of this effect
this afterburner is termed the mix/burn
system. A full description is deferred
to a later section.
L
Afterburner BUZZ in the Olympus 22R
System
O t L peak ~ 0.9 <f
Although afterburner buzz is usually Cronr section through L,= Distance from
associated with fairly recent turbofan standard channel anvil injector fuel injecfor
cnqines, it is by no means confined to
this type, and, as early as 1961, the
phenomenon was encountered in a Typical fuel air ratio wafile at 1 0
Rolls-Royce turbojet engine, the Olympus Figure 6 inbnion distance
22R. during bench engine investigations advantage of the channel anvil injcctor
into a quite separate engine is that the fuel rina is externall" ~~~~~~~~~~

instability. Since the appearance of cooled by the injected iuei~which hclps

buzz during flight seemed a real, if to suppress internal boiling in the ring
remote, possibility on this engine and and the instabilities in fuel supply and
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its possible consequences were believed burning which this causes. In the cross
to be potentially very damaging, a full stream or, in the present case, thc
enquiry into its fundamental causes was radial direction the channel anvil
initiated (Reference 4 ) . From the start develops a peak in the fuel
of the investigation it was known that concentration in line with itself and
the possibility of buzz arose in the this peak reduces at increasingly remote
Olympus 22R because of the nature of its distances downstream. At any fixed
fuel control svstcm. This introduced ~~ ~ distance downstream of the fuel injcctor
the fuel in consecutive stages, with (L ) , the radial fuel distribution is
each fuel injection stage feeding one of coAstant over practical ranges of gas
the afterburner's annular flameholders. conditions and fuel flow and the
Thc control system was designed to half-width (w) of the spray is given by
deliver the schedulcd fuel irrcspective the simple expression:-
of the back pressure from the fuel
injection system and this meant that, if w = 0.9 LI 1 / 2
one fuel injector failed to be selected, where the half-width is defined by the
due to a faulty value, for instance, its stations where the local fuel
intended share of the fuel would be concentration is half the ueak value.
autornaticallv divided between the
This simple characteristic allows the
fuel iniection distance to be choscn to
reccive significantly more fuel than optimise the distribution of fuel at the
their scheduled flow and it was this flameholder station since the fuel may
circumstance which it was found could be spread evenly across the gas stream
generate buzz. or alternatively concentrated at the
Turbine exhaust Plain V-glmer
flameholders by siting the fuel
injectors either relatively far or close
/ RsmehoMerr.
/
upstream. The operating characteristics
of an afterburner which are influenced
by the uniformity of the fuel
distribution are the thrust boost at
which maximum efficiency is achieved,
the lean operating limits and, as will
\ be seen, the system's buzz
Line J D U ~ C B"Channel Anvir pilot burner
fuel i j n o r s in aero-
characteristics. All of these
dynamic alignment characteristics are strongly influenced
Fiqure 5 Whh flameholders by the fuel air ratio local to the
The Olympus 22R afterburner (Figure S flameholder station. With channel-anvil
features three, concentric, annular fuel injection, peak efficiency, lean
flameholders, of plain V-baffle section, blow off and afterburner buzz occur at,
each served by a "channel-anvil'' fuel respectively, stoichiometric, 30%
injector located about 70 nun directly stoichiometric and 150% stoichiometric
upstream. The channel-anvil fuel conditions at the flameholder. In
injector (Figure 6 ) is a ring manifold general, therefore, the fuel injection
from which the fuel is injected in an length can be chosen to maximise
upstream direction into a downstream afterburner efficiency at the boost
facing channel. The fuel spreads required by the engine application, but
circumferentially in the channel which with possible over-riding limitations
therefore acts as a line source of fuel determined by the fuel ( o r boost) turn
and provides a very uniform supply along down requirements and by the risk of
its length. An important secondary buzz.

4
 The value of the flameholder fuel air common feature of turbofan systems. In
ratio at buzz onset (50% above turbojet afterburners it is a relatively
stoichiometric) was determined in the simple matter to achieve a uniform fuel
series of exoeriments on the OlVmDUS 22R distribution at the flameholders and,
engine refeGred to earlier in -w<ich it even in a very high boost system, it is
was deduced that an excess of fuel air never necessary to fuel beyond a mean or
ratio beyond this value at any single local stoichiometric level. Thus it is
v'
flameholder was a sufficient condition only in the event of a fuel control
for buzz. The tests were made in an system failure, such as described
altitude test cell at various simulated earlier, that local fuel air ratios rise
flight conditions. The main hardware to anything like buzz provoking levels.
changes evaluated during the tests were In normal circumstances turbojet
to the fuel injectors, of which several afterburners operate within a 50%
tvDes in addition to the channel anvil margin, at least, of buzz provoking fuel
injectors were used. The injectors were air ratios. The situation is quite
located at various distances from the different in a mixed turbofan where,
flameholders to vary the fuel because of the lower inlet gas
concentrations at the flameholder temperature, afterburner fuelling levels
station and, during the tests, the fuel can be 30% to 40% higher than a turbojet
to single and various combinations of of the same total air flow. Meanwhile
fuel injectors was increased until the the vitiation of the turbine exhaust
buzz instability was detected. As stream is 15% - 20% higher than that of
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already noted, it was found that, in a turbojet of the same turbine exit
every example of buzz onset, the fuel to temperature (the extra representing the
some flameholder o r to part of a work extracted to drive the outer fan).
flameholder had been raised to the Local fuel and fuel air ratio
critical level and this applied concentrations are therefore much higher
irrespective of the prevailing gas in turbofan systems than in turbojets
conditions in the jet pipe or the and any failure to distribute the
prevailing level of heat release in the afterburner fuel in strict accordance to
pipe - although the latter obviously the local stream requirements can
influenced the amplitude of the instigate buzz.
instability once it had been generated.
This is illustrated in Figure 7 which
shows buzz amplitude versus a fuel The Wix/Burn Afterburner
concentration parameter which indicates

-
the peak fuel air ratio at the As first specified, the two main
flameholders. It shows how buzz always requirements of the mix/burn afterburner
appears at a fixed local fuel air ratio were that it should deliver very high
but thereafter responds to the number of thrust boosts, of the order of 7 5 % at
flameholders in operation, that is to take off, and that it should do so in an
the total quantity of fuel supplied to extremely confined geometry (Figure 8 ) .
the system. The length allowed between the turbine
and the throat of the variable nozzle
Because of the nature of the Olympus 2 2 R was approximately 1.75 m. The Pipe
engine cycle and its afterburner control diameter allowed at the afterburner
system, the only jet pipe gas stream inlet station was fairly generous so
property which was variable with flight that, although the gas velocities at
condition during these tests was the gas
pressure so that no information on the
influence of inlet gas stream velocity,
temperature or vitiation on buzz onset
was obtained, nor were the effects of
pipe acoustics investigated.
Nevertheless the results help to explain
why buzz has seldom been reported in
turbojet afterburners but seems to be a
11. Nozde
Number Of tuel

Figure 8
this station vary considerably as the
engine bypass ratio adjusts with the
prevailing flight condition and EDNA
value, they are never high enough to
jeopardise the burning stability of the
flameholders within the required flight
envelope of the system. Shortly
downstream of the flameholders, however,
100 150 200 250 it was necessary to taper the jet pipe
Figure 7 &ai tusl eonsemru&n p ~ r a m e ~ very steeply in order to accommodate the

5
 nozzle actuation system and a thrust Hot a? shroud
reverser between the jet pipe and the
boat tail lines of the aircraft. The
effect of the pipe taper is, of course,
to increase the internal gas velocities
relative to the cylindrical pipe case
and, since all gas stream heating L
generates total pressure losses which
increase with stream velocity, the
eventual consequence is a significant
loss in the afterburner boost for a
Hot air intake 4%
fixed nozzle gas temperature. To
compensate for this the afterburner must
be designed and developed either to
complete its burning relatively early in \
Mounting links
the tapered pipe or to achieve a Figure 9
correspondingly higher nozzle
temperature. In either case the tapered Although the bypass and turbine stream
pipe increases the difficulty of meeting afterburners of the mixfburn system are
the afterburner objectives. intended to opsrate independently of
each other, nevertheless the close
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It has already been explained that, oroximitv of the hot turbine stream is
because of previous experience of
afterburners which were designed to
encourage vigorous mixing between the fall as low as 300 K at extremes of the
bypass and turbine gas streams, a flight envelope. To achieve this, a
principle objective of the mixfburn small DroDortion of the hot aases is
system was to discourage mixing or collected -ahead of the turbine stream
rather to discourage large scale flameholders (Figure 10) and ducted to
movements of either stream across the feed the bypass stream vaporisers and,
jet pipe. To achieve this the mix/burn indeed, to enshroud the whole of the
system was designed as two separate bypass flameholder system so that its
systems intended to operate more or less wake flame is fed wholly and only with
independently of each other. This hot turbine stream gases. This has the
allowed each system to be arranged to effect of giving the whole of the
suit the conditions of its own gas mixfburn afterburner the burning
stream and, in the case of the turbine stability characteristics of a turbojet
stream, for a simple turbojet afterburner as well as providing
afterburner to be adopted, similar to considerable assistance to the
that of the Olympus 22R engine. propagation of the main burning across -
'

the cold bypass stream.

In the mix/burn system (Figures 8 and 9)
it features two concentxic and
inter-connected annular vee-shaped
baffles each fuelled bv an uastream
channel-anvil fuel injector.
Flameholders and injectors are
separately link-mounted to an enclosing
outer cylinder to allow unrestricted and
independent thermal expansion of the
various rings and the whole assembly is
located within the engine exhaust
annulus. The geometric details of the
system are chosen to ensure clean
aerodynamics throughout the system with
accurate alignment of the fuel injectors
with the flameholders. An over-riding
requirement of the system was to avoid
afterburner buzz within the operational
range of afterburner fuel flows.
For the bypass system, a cold stream Earlv exaerience of the vaaoriser fuel
burner was obviously required and the injection used in the bypas; afterburner
usual Rolls-Royce combination of was not encouraging until it was
wake-fuelled flameholders and coplanar realised that the wake system behind the
"fill" or main fuel injector was array of interconnected annular and
adopted. The flameholder arrangement is radial baffles was divided into quite
of an annular vee-shaped baffle from distinct flow zones with no guaranteed
which radial baffles extend across the interchange of gases between them.
bypass stream. Vaporiser fuel injectors Before this was established it was
are provided at each intersection of assumed that the whole of the wake
the radial
(Figure 10).
and annular baffles region was effectively a single zone
subject to vigorous and random .
 cross-movement of gases. Accordingly, front nozzle thrust of the Pegasus
the pilot fuel was fed into the wakes engine. They are an adaptation of the
through "mushroom vaporisers" swallow tail gas jet and, when employed
(Figure 11) in a fairly simple fashion. for liquid fuel injection, they produce
a fan shaped, thin sheet of fuel which
quickly disrupts into a spray of fine
v'
droplets.

Fuel Staging
To achieve the very fast selections and
accelerations required of the mix/burn
afterburner a relatively simple, two
stage fuel feed system was employed.
Mushroom vaporiser L-shaped vaporiser The first stage supplies fuel to the
Figure 11 pilot baffle only and the second stage
provides the rest, that is to the
Subsequently these were replaced by turbine stream channel anvil fuel
L-shaped vaporisers with various
provisions to ensure that all parts of injectors and to the bypass stream fan
the wake system were adequately fuelled. spray fuel injectors. The pilot fuel is
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One such feature is an internal baffle not modulated with the pilots lever but,
which divides the vaporiser air flow on afterburner selection, is metered as
between inner feed holes to the annular a fixed function of the prevailing
turbine stream air flow to establish a
baffle and outer feed holes to the constant fuel air ratio in the
radial baffles. The total airflow afterburner gutter wakes. The main fuel
through the vaporiser is metered by an modulates with the pilot's lever from a
internal orifice ahead of the baffle. minimum flow, which is set to just keep
The fuel flow is injected just the manifolds full of fuel against the
downstream of the metering orifice, natural drainage, to maximum flow which,
where the gas velocities are at their over large parts of the flight envelope,
highest, and equal quantities of fuel gives approximately stoichiometric
are directed to either side of the
vaporiser baffle. The fuel air mixture nozzle gas temperatures. This
arrangement ensures that all afterburner
is finally ejected from the vaporiser accelerations can proceed without the
through a System of small holes located hesitations which would inevitably
to feed the wake of the annular baffle result if they began with any parts of
and various zones of the radial baffle the fuel injection system yet to be
W
wake. Without the separate feeds to the filled. The division of the main fuel
wake zones a full wake flame could not injection stage between the turbine and
be guaranteed. bypass gas streams is not, of course,
For the main bypass fuel injectors an fixed but varies with the engine bypass
ratio around the aircraft flight
array of six fan sprayers, three along envelope.
each side of the radial baffles, was
eventually adopted (Figure 10). The
number and disposition of these Afterburner Selection and Ignition
injectors were developed on a sector
burning rig reproducing a section of the The previous section describes how, once
annular baffle and two radial baffles. selected, all parts of the fuel
In general it was found that a injection system remain full and in
configuration which is conducive to high operation whatever the degree of
heat release and combustion efficiency afterburning selected by the pilot. The
is also relatively prone to buzz, requirements of the selection procedure
whilst, for instance, if the fuel are to fill the fuel injection system,
injectors are located sufficiently far to establish the minimum afterburner
from the flameholders then both the flows described above, to open the
efficiency and the proneness to buzz is nozzle to the matching area and,
reduced. An advantage of coplanar fuel finally, to light the system.
injection is that it allows the
placement of the main fuel to be In a turbofan engine there is direct
relatively accurately optimised to communication between the afterburner
achieve the best possible compromise and the fan by way of the bypass duct so
between heat release, efficiency and that any mismatch of the afterburner
buzz. fuel with the nozzle area setting is
immediately felt by the fan, whose
The fanspray fuel injector was chosen running line rises or falls depending on
because it proved to be the best of the direction of the mismatch.
several fuel injectors which were Afterburner light ups inevitably involve
evaluated. The fan sprayers were a degree of mismatch since ignition is
originally developed for use in the always instantaneous and much too fast
"plenum chamber burner", to augment the for any practicable nozzle actuation

7
 system to Eollow. The effect of the hence limit the rate at which the fuel
light up is, of course, to thermally flow can be modulated. To avoid these
throttle the fan flow and to raise its delays in the mix/burn afterburner, the
runnina
~ line
~~ towards ~surae.
~~ ~To ~~
~~ fuel flow and nozzle area are separately
compensate for this effect and to controlled to pre-scheduled values which
eliminate any possibility of fan surge suit the prevailing flight and engine
on afterburner light up, the nozzle of running conditions and give the degree u
the mix/burn afterburner is pre-opened of boost selected by the pilot.
to its minimum boost area before the
fuel is ignited. The fan running point The chief ramification of twin open loop
therefore falls on afterburner selection control for the afterburner system
but is immediately restored when the results from the fact that the schedules
afterburner lights. and control system sequences must be
chosen to ensure that schedule errors
~~~
_ _
The manifold fillina Drocedures in the
~~~~~

mix/burn System is in two phases - a

~~ ~~
and mismatches which inevitably occur
during the fast transients are always
'fast prime' phase which nearly fills safe and tend to lower the fan running
the fuel system very quickly and a slow line rather than raise it towards surge.
prime stage which completes the process. The resulting high EDNA values increase
These arrangements ensure that fuel the engine bypass ratio and the gas
never reaches the burning zones at fast velocities through the afterburner and
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prime rates which, once again, could both of these effects tend to degrade
over restore and, perhaps surge the fan. the afterburner performance and reduce
its burning stability.
Ignition in the mix/hurn afterburner is
by "hot streak" in which a small The full sequence of afterburner
quantity of fuel is injected into the selection and acceleration procedures
main combustor and briefly generates a are shown in Figure 13. Originally it
flame throuah the turbine which is lona
~~

enough to ignite the afterburner fuel.

~ ~- was intended that the selection would
not proceed beyond light up without a
Early experience of hot streak ignition positive indication from a u/v flame
was not always satisfactory, especially detector but this has not proved to be a
when large quantities of fuel were necessary feature . However, if the
injected slowly into the primary zone of engine running line, as indicated by the
the main combustor. Not surprisingly turbine pressure ratio, should deviate
these measures could severely damage the too far from normal, then the selection
turbine. Modern practise is to inject is terminated and the system is shut
the fuel at the downstream end of the down.
combustor towards the turbine and L O u s e Maximum
"02218 area b
very small quantities ( F l y l i r e 1 2 1 . WiLh
chcse provisions, che syscern is safe and
extremely reliable.

1 Ennine I Flow
Avon 250 ccs in 2 secs
Olympus-22R 250 ccs in 0.4 secs
RBI45 30 ccs in 0.6 secs
RB168-25R 48 ccs in 0.3 secs 3 sea lewl
0 1 2
RBI99 20 ccs in 0.25 secs Time-seconds
fake-off
sB0"e"ce
Figure 13
Figure 12
Jet Pipe and Heat Shield
Win open loop Control of the
Afterburner Fuel and Nozzle The jet pipe of the mix/burn afterburner
is a titanium fabrication and is
The afterburner selection times protected from the afterburner flames by
specified for the mix/burn afterburner a two piece heat shield which is
were felt, when the system was designed, fabricated in a heat resistant nickel
to be too fast to allow automatic based alloy. Design of the heat shield
'closed-loop' control of the nozzle to is inherently more difficult than that
match the fuel modulations. In closed of the jet pipe which is essentially a
loop control, whenever the afterburner cool running, fairly simple pressure
fuel is modulated an error signal from drum. Against this, the heat shield not
the engine is used to vary the nozzle only operates much hotter than the jet
area in such a way as to restore the pipe, and must be mounted from it by
engine turbomachinery to the required
running line. The responses in such a
system are inevitably time consuming and
means which allow differential
expansions between them, it also has to
withstand pressure loads which vary with .
8
 flight conditions and the degree of boost and burning stability reduces at
afterburning selected and which switch very low pressures.
from explosive to implosive along its Effective fuel-air ratio
length. relative 10 datum

- Many systems have been devised to

accommodate these circumstances with
varying degrees of success in terms of
durability, weight, complication and so
on. The mix/burn afterburner uses
simple zylindrizal seccions which are
conventionilly film cooled. The cooling
rings provide the stiffness required to
withstand any pressure loads which the
heat shield may experience, including
afterburner flame out cases. They are
comparatively heavy in themselves but
allow a simple and light mounting system 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5
of bolts and radial pins which are Jet pipe pressure (ATMI
attached to the jet pipe and locate in Figure 15
holes and slots in the heat shield
sections. Figures 15 and 16 show how the highest
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fuel air ratios at which the three

The forward section of the heat shield afterburners can be operated and their
is pcrforated to provide acouscic peak efficiencies are affected by jet
suppression of rhc high frequency. cross pipe pressure. In all cases the effects
stream pressure oscillations (screech) are increasingly important as pressure
to which all high boost afterburner reduces below 2 atmospheres but the
systems are prone. mixlburn system is. easily the least
sensitive to pressure and maintains its
performance to much lower levels than
Comparative Performance the other systems.
The performance of the three afterburner
systems described in previous sections
Figures 14 - 17.

-
is compared in
Figure 14 shows the burning stability in
terms of the excess nozzle area or EDNA
value which the afterburners can
withstand without extinction versus the
prevailing jet pipe pressure. The plot
indicates not only steady burning
stability but also the extreme
conditions at which the afterburner can
be ‘handled’,that is selected or turned
up or down without risk of extinction,
since it is during handling that high
EDNA values are experienced. 1.b 1:5 2:o 2s
Jet pipe pressure IATMI

/‘
“Out*
Figure 16
ares
Figure 17 shows the buzz characteristics
of the three afterburners and
‘Mix-then-Burn’ illustrates the increasing degree of
control exerted over the fuel placement
within the successive systems. In the
20
mix/burn system, the two types of buzz
which can be provoked depending on
whether the bypass or the core gas
stream is over fuelled are particularly
distinct. The fuel air ratio at which
each stream is provoked into buzz is
virtually independent of the fuel
supplied to the other stream indicating
Figure 14 1.0 1.5 2.0 the absence of any exchange of fuel
between the two. Clearly this does not
Unexpectedly the superiority of the apply to the other systems where
mix/burn afterburner diminishes with cross-stream movements of fuel or gas
reducing pressure possibly indicating add to the buzz proneness of both
that, even with the assistance from the streams and lower the total fuel air
hot stream provided by the mix/burn ratio at which buzz free operation is
afterburner, the contribution of the possible.
-
.
, bypass stream burner to high altitude

9
 BUZZ References
I
L
100 y, Sotheran, A.
"Some Aspects of Plenum Chamber
+MixlBurn' system Burning"
Combustion and Heat Transfer in Gas
ratio f%1 Turbine Systems, Pergamon Press, L
Oxford, 1971, Norster, E.R. ed.

-.'Mix and Burn' system Sotheran, A.

"The Rolls-Royce Annular Vaporiser
60-
Combustor"
Trans. ASME, J.Eng. Gas Turbines and
I Power, Vol 106, No 1, pp 88 - 95,
60 no 100
Relative c o x fuel air ratio% January 1984.
Figure 17
3 ) Rowe, R.A.
The buzz fuel air ratios of the mixlburn "Preliminary Development of a
system are well in excess of the maximum Lonqitudinal Vortex Combustor",
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levels required for steady operation of Internal Rolls-Royce Report

the afterburner and allow considerable (unpublished).
excursions above these levels during the
fast accelerations demanded of the
system. 4) Lewis, J.S.
"The Effect of Local Fucl
Concentrations on Reheat Jet Pipe
Future Requirements Vibrations"
Combustion in Advanced Gas Turbine
The current trend in military engine Systems, Pergamon Press, Oxford,
cycles is towards high and even 1968. Smith I.E. ed
stoichiometric turbine entry
temperatures and low bypass ratios, both
of which reduce the boost potential and
perhaps, the need for afterburning.
However, in so far as afterburners will
continue to be used in future engines,
these trends tend to ease the problems
of burning the fuel reliably and
efficiently, whilst worsening those
associated with hardware durability.
These problems are common with those of
other engine hot end components and a
number of possible solutions are already
available or in development. These
include air cooling of the hardware,
extending current turbine practise into
the afterburner, and the use of advanced
materials including refractory metals,
ceramics, carbon and composites.
However, nqne of the alternative
materials match the comparative ease of
manufacture and flexibility of
application of the high duty metal
alloys they are intended to replace and
most have serious incidental defects for
instance in their oxidation resistance
or high temperature strengths. As a
result both the type and form of the
material employed must be selected and
developed to suit its precise
application whilst the manner in which
the item achieves its aerodynamic or
thermodynamic function must usually be
adjusted either to protect the material
or to secure maximum advantage from its
improved properties.