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Technology
Overview
Representative Images
Technology Summary &
Background
Estimated Technology Readiness
Level (TRL)
General Electric uses the phrase "trapped vortex"
to generally denote a combustor having a non-linear cavity into which
air and fuel are injected and ignited to form a stable, stationary
vortex. This vortex acts as a boundary to help stabilize the
combustor flame, allowing combustors to have higher flow, avoid
combustion "staging", minimize autoignition within the mixer(s), and
potentially have a shorter overall axial length.
Other phrases used to express this technology include
"non-linear cavity" (by GE) and "single
cavity combustor" (by the USAF).
GE did not "invent" trapped vortex combustion
per se: The combustion concept was already known in the art
1 . Rather, GE cites United
States Air Force
Contract No. F33615-93-C-2305 as the motivation for developing their
trapped vortex combustion hardware.
As of 2008, the trapped vortex combustor concept was
approaching its' fifth generation(See:
Graphic at left).
GE has already started investigating the use of trapped
vortex combustion in their Industrial Gas Turbines (ie: "Frame", or
IGT engines)
1
Program Partners for Trapped Vortex Combustion
include the US Military (AFRL/PRSC, AFOSR, NAVAIR, NAVSEA),
US Government (DOE/NETL, NASA), and industry (GE
Aircraft Engines and Innovative Scientific Solutions, Inc. aka: ISSI)
(Explanatory language
redacted, greeking for padding only)
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Summary of
the technology, as published in 2006 by the US Department of
Energy's Office of Fossil Energy. The Handbook is a comprehensive
collection of gas turbine engine technologies & components.
A January 2008 publication by the US
Naval Air Warfare Center (US NAWC) suggests a technology
readiness of at least TRL-4, and possibly TRL-5; the Program Plan
from that report is shown at right as Fig. 1
1
Fig. 1: TV
Combustor Plan for Military Aircraft, per US NAWC (Barlow)
Patents & Trademarks
Patents research
1 located twenty-six (26)
inventions
identified with either General Electric and/or an inventor
presumed associated with GE and explicitly mentioning a "trapped
vortex" within a combustion product or process: A spreadsheet
summarizing the documents is Attached as "120108_GETVChlo.xls", below.
GE Intellectual Property
A chronology chart of patent filings by GE involving "trapped vortex"
combustion is shown at right. As of 12/01/08, all of GE's
US patent applications have been granted.
Patents research
1 on the technology, regardless
of
Company affiliation, located thirty-one (31) inventions
explicitly mentioning a "trapped vortex" within a combustion product or
process: The expanded chart is shown at right; the same chart broken
down by Company is shown below.
----
Technical Publications
Database Research
1 found forty-eight (48)
non-patent
documents involving the subject of "trapped vortex" combustion.
Research was not limited to any Company, Date, Publisher, etc.
The technical documents results is
Attached as Excel workbook "120208_TVCthlo.xls",
below.
A plot illustrating the rate of
technical publications by year is shown at right. In addition, a chronology
of technical publications itemized by corporate, government, or
academic affiliation is shown below.
Notice that while General Electric has a number
of patents covering trapped vortex combustion, they are not explicitly
associated with any of the publicly-available technical publications.
General Information
Data
Visualizations
Chronology Chart:
Publications by Affiliation
Chronology Chart: Technical
Papers vs. GE Inventions
Chronology Chart:
Inventions, by Assignee
08/14/08
Research
Date of Research
Researcher
Research Topic
Data Resources
08/14/08
[name redacted]
Patents involving trapped vortex combustion,
per AP&T request
Micropatent - Patent Databases
Research
Results
(Add anygeneralresearch
notes here, including search limitations, caveats, etc.)
Type of Information
Results
Visual
Patents & Trademarks
Add description and/or results here
Data
Visualizations
Plot 1: Caption
Plot 2: Caption
Plot 3: Caption
Footnotes
Footnotes are generated by proprietary third-party software
and thus cannot be displayed.
US6735949dwg3ed.jpg
120108_GETVChlo.xls
120108_GETVCIPChron.jpg
(image/pjpeg)