Numerical Investigation of Cavity-Vane Interactions within the Ultra Compact Combustor

A numerical analysis and design optimization of the Ultra Compact Combustor (UCC) has been conducted. The UCC is a combustor designed to incorporate high-g loadings to increase flame propagation speed while reducing flame length, thereby helping to significantly reduce the size of a combustor. A commercial CFD package with a k-?? turbulence model has been used to develop design rules for the construction of future UCCs. There have been several versions of UCC that have been designed, built and tested by AFRL/PRTC. Since real experimental tests are expensive and construction time is prohibitive to test many different design configurations, CFD modeling of the UCC is used to speed up the design optimization process while reducing the overall costs. The CFD models have been validated by comparison to data from recent experimental tests. The use of periodic sections and grid independence were validated as well. Modifications to the physical configuration were then modeled using CFD.