Abstract
A micro gas turbine combustor with a sintered porous chamber wall as inlet was tested and simulated. When burning methane in the 2.14 cm3 chamber volume combustor, its maximum power density reached 336 M W/m3. The combustion efficiency was above 90% when producing 850–1100 K exit gas. The pressure drop ratio of the porous inlet was below 5 kPa with 6 L/min premixed gas flow rate at hot condition. Compared with a conventional solid-wall micro combustor with heat recovery channel, the outside wall temperature of the porous-wall micro combustor decreased 150–200 K, and the heat loss ratio reduced from 40–80% to 20–40%. Direct numerical simulation based on the skeletal chemical kinetics model was used to elucidate the flame structure and heat loss reducing mechanism of the porous-wall micro combustor.