The Pratt & Whitney TALON X Low Emissions Combustor: Revolutionary Results with Evolutionary Technology

Pratt & Whitney has developed a family of reduced NOx combustors for aircraft gas turbine engines using the rich, quench, lean approach. This paper describes an extension of this family to an advanced concept called TALON X that has demonstrated the potential for very low NOx levels in development testing. The requirements for a combustor design are described and the key technologies investigated including a uniform rich primary zone, optimized quench, advanced cooling, and residence time reduction are discussed. Results demonstrating the potential of TALON X to produce NOx levels 70% below CAEP2 levels are presented.