Abstract

In the operation of an air atomized jet engine augmentor oil burner, the herein disclosed improvement typically comprises a means for modulating the fuel-air ratio of the wake combustion in the jet engine augmentor according to ambient pressures and densities of the supplied air to that ratio which will sustain the highest wake combustion thermal efficiency, and in the process to vaporize and ignite the fuel-air mixture therein instantly and completely into an intense and turbulent flame spread.My method of doing this is to create unusually intense combustion activities resulting from the energy input of controlled high energy pulsed laser beam or beams directed into the forward area of the recirculation zone of the augmentor to ignite and explode fuel droplets therein; the said combustion activities to be of sufficient power and turbulence to change the normal aerodynamics of the flame-holder aerosol flower in such a manner as to alter their reaction kinetics favorably and thereby cause a bypass of a predetermined portion of the normal fuel drop-ins by adjusting the frequency of the laser beam pulses directed into the said recirculation zone. The procedure here is to measure the density (pressure) of the ambient air and convert this into corresponding predetermined laser pulse frequencies to control the amount of fuel captured in the recirculation zone and thereby attain the wake combustion fuel-air ratio desired for the operating altitude.