Introduction

The aircraft gas turbine engine is a complex machine using advanced technology from many engineering disciplines such as aerodynamics, materials science, combustion, mechanical design, and manufacturing engineering. In the very early days of gas turbines, the combustor section was frequently the most challenging (Golley, Whittle, and Gunston, 1987). Although the industry’s capability to design combustors has greatly improved, they remain an important design challenge.

This chapter will describe how the combustor interacts with the rest of the engine and flight vehicle by describing the relationship between attributes of the engine and the resulting requirements for the combustor. Emissions, a major engine performance characteristic that relies heavily on combustor design, will be introduced here with more detail found in following chapters. The wide range of operating conditions a combustor must meet as engine thrust varies, which is a major challenge for combustor design, will also be described. Last, the relationship between combustor exit temperature distribution and turbine section durability will be discussed.