Combustion inlet diffuser employing boundary layer flow straightening vanes

Claim 1

An annular combustion chamber having an inlet and an outlet and being concentric about an axis and including: A. outer and inner wall members of generally circular crosssection and concentric about said axis and cooperating to define a diffuser section, a combustion section and a dilution section in series axially among said combustion chamber, said diffuser section including: 1. an outer wall which diverges away from said axis in a downstream direction, 2. an inner wall which converges toward said axis in a downstream direction and cooperates with said outer wall to define a divergent annular diffuser passage therebetween, 3. means to pass fluid into said combustion chamber inlet, 4. means to establish the flow characteristics to be axial flow along said walls and to have a tangential component in the central region between the axial flow regions, and 5. wherein said fluid passing means is constructed to pass swirling fluid into said combustion chamber inlet, and wherein said flow characteristics establishing means comprise flow straightening vanes positioned circumferentially about and projecting substantially radially inwardly from said outer wall member and radially outwardly from said inner wall member to cause the flow along said walls to be substantially axial, while the flow in the central region continues to swirl so as to have a substantial tangential component.