Validation Methodology for the Development of Low Emission Fuel Injectors for Aero-Engines

This contribution describes a newly derived devel-opment chain for the early design and validation phases of lean burning injectors allowing a faster and cheaper design process. It comprises an initial con-cept definition, design optimizations based on CFD and a design validation by qualitative fuel flow tests, followed by the application of laser diagnostic meth-ods. Finally, emission and operability characteristics are determined at real operating conditions. The comprehensiveness of the applied development chain has been proved to significantly reduce NOx emissions of the lean burners and to generate vali-dated design rules for the fuel injectors analyzed in this study.