Fuel Injector Patent Application Filed with U. S. Patent Office

The U. S. Patent Office recently published the patent application entitled “Piloted Airblast Lean Direct Fuel Injector with Modified Air Splitter” which was invented by CFDRC engineers Clifford E. Smith and Daniel A. Nickolaus. The Assignee is Rolls-Royce, plc, Derby (Great Britain). This invention was conceived during project work with Rolls-Royce, and is a modification of U.S. Patent 6,272,840 (Piloted Airblast Lean Direct Fuel Injector) whose assignee is CFDRC. For this new application, CFDRC utilized unsteady combustion CFD analysis to study combustion dynamics of the fuel injector, and was able to determine a design (modified air splitter) that significantly reduced combustor oscillations.