Development Needs for Advanced Afterburner Designs

The afterburner on a modern aircraft gas turbine engine provides significant thrust augmentation critical to the performance and mission of tactical aircraft. Higher exhaust temperatures and survivability requirements for advanced aircraft have resulted in new constraints on the augmentor design which dramatically changes the design architecture. Many of the design methods established for afterburners over the past 50 years are insufficient for the augmentor configurations being developed today. This paper will describe some of the fundamental technical challenges being faced by augmentor designers, and will outline critical needs in terms of fundamental combustion sciences and engineering that needs to be acquired to support new design methods for advanced augmentors.