scholarly journals Combustion Instability of Swirl Premixed Flame with Dielectric Barrier Discharge Plasma

Processes ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (8) ◽  
pp. 1405
Author(s):  
Kai Deng ◽  
Shenglang Zhao ◽  
Chenyang Xue ◽  
Jinlin Hu ◽  
Yi Zhong ◽  
...  

The effects of plasma on the combustion instability of a methane swirling premixed flame under acoustic excitation were investigated. The flame image of OH planar laser-induced fluorescence and the fluctuation of flame transfer function showed the mechanism of plasma in combustion instability. The results show that when the acoustic frequency is less than 100 Hz, the gain in flame transfer function gradually increases with the frequency; when the acoustic frequency is 100~220 Hz, the flame transfer function shows a trend of first decreasing and then increasing with acoustic frequency. When the acoustic frequency is greater than 220 Hz, the flame transfer function gradually decreases with acoustic frequency. When the voltage exceeds the critical discharge value of 5.3 kV, the premixed gas is ionized and the heat release rate increases significantly, thereby reducing the gain in flame transfer function and enhancing flame stability. Plasma causes changes in the internal recirculation zone, compression, and curling degree of the flame, and thereby accelerates the rate of chemical reaction and leads to an increase in flame heat release rate. Eventually, the concentration of OH radicals changes, and the heat release rate changes accordingly, which ultimately changes the combustion instability of the swirling flame.

Author(s):  
Bernhard C. Bobusch ◽  
Bernhard Ćosić ◽  
Jonas P. Moeck ◽  
Christian Oliver Paschereit

Equivalence ratio fluctuations are known to be one of the key factors controlling thermoacoustic stability in lean premixed gas turbine combustors. The mixing and thus the spatio-temporal evolution of these perturbations in the combustor flow is, however, difficult to account for in present low-order modeling approaches. To investigate this mechanism, experiments in an atmospheric combustion test rig are conducted. To assess the importance of equivalence ratio fluctuations in the present case, flame transfer functions for different injection positions are measured. By adding known perturbations in the fuel flow using a solenoid valve, the influence of equivalence ratio oscillations on the heat release rate is investigated. The spatially and temporally resolved equivalence ratio fluctuations in the reaction zone are measured using two optical chemiluminescence signals, captured with an intensified camera. A steady calibration measurement allows for the quantitative assessment of the equivalence ratio fluctuations in the flame. This information is used to obtain a mixing transfer function, which relates fluctuations in the fuel flow to corresponding fluctuations in the equivalence ratio of the flame. The current study focuses on the measurement of the global, spatially integrated, transfer function for equivalence ratio fluctuations and the corresponding modeling. In addition, the spatially resolved mixing transfer function is shown and discussed. The global mixing transfer function reveals that despite the good spatial mixing quality of the investigated generic burner, the ability to damp temporal fluctuations at low frequencies is rather poor. It is shown that the equivalence ratio fluctuations are the governing heat release rate oscillation response mechanism for this burner in the low-frequency regime. The global transfer function for equivalence ratio fluctuations derived from the measurements is characterized by a pronounced low-pass characteristic, which is in good agreement with the presented convection–diffusion mixing model.


2009 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 1311-1318 ◽  
Author(s):  
S.B. Dworkin ◽  
A.M. Schaffer ◽  
B.C. Connelly ◽  
M.B. Long ◽  
M.D. Smooke ◽  
...  

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicholas C. W. Treleaven ◽  
André Fischer ◽  
Claus Lahiri ◽  
Max Staufer ◽  
Andrew Garmory ◽  
...  

Abstract The flame transfer function (FTF) of an industrial lean-burn fuel injector has been computed using large eddy simulation (LES) and compared to experimental measurements using the multi-microphone technique and OH* measurements. The flame transfer function relates the fluctuations of heat release in the combustion chamber to fluctuations of airflow through the fuel injector and is a critical part of thermoacoustic analysis of combustion systems. The multi-microphone method derives the FTF by forcing the flame acoustically, alternating from the upstream and downstream side. Simulations emulating this methodology have been completed using compressible large eddy simulations (LES). These simulations are also used to derive an FTF by measuring the fluctuations of mass flow rate and heat release rate directly which reduces the number of simulations per frequency to one, significantly reducing the simulation cost. Simulations acoustically forced from downstream are shown to result in a lower value of the FTF gain than simulations forced from upstream with a small change in phase, this is shown to be consistent with theory. Through using a slightly different definition of the FTF, this is also shown to be consistent with measurements of the heat release rate using OH* chemiluminescence however these results are inconsistent with the multi-microphone method result. The discrepancy comes from not having an accurate measurement of the acoustic impedance at the exit plane of the injector and from certain convective phenomena that alter the downstream velocity and pressure field with respect to the purely acoustic signal. All simulations show a lower gain in the FTF than the experiments but with good reproduction of phase. Previous work suggests this error is likely due to fluctuations of the fuel spray atomisation process due to the acoustic forcing which is not modelled in this study.


Author(s):  
Xiaoling Chen ◽  
Wyatt Culler ◽  
Stephen Peluso ◽  
Domenic Santavicca ◽  
Jacqueline O’Connor

Low-emissions gas turbine combustion, achieved through the use of lean, premixed fueling strategies, is susceptible to combustion instability. The driving mechanism for this instability arises from fluctuations of pressure, fuel/air flow rate, and heat release rate. If these fluctuations are relatively in-phase, the combustion system will evolve to a self-excited state. The self-excited instability frequency and amplitude depend mainly on the operating condition and the geometry of the combustor. In this study, we consider the onset and decay of self-excited instabilities, resulting from transients in fuel/air ratio, in both single-nozzle and multi-nozzle combustors. In particular, we examine the differences in the instability onset and decay processes between these two flame configurations, as most gas turbine combustors have multiple nozzles, but most gas turbine combustor experiments utilize a single-nozzle. A nonlinear logistic regression analysis is applied to study the timescales of the decay and onset transients. Variations in the equivalence ratio change the heat release rate distribution inside the combustor, which is captured using chemiluminescence imaging. The normalized Rayleigh index, which shows the spatial distribution of the instability driving, is calculated to analyze the driving strength in different regions of the flame. Comparisons between the single- and multi-nozzle flame transients, including both center and outer flames for the multi-nozzle combustor, suggest that both confinement from the wall and flame-flame interaction are crucial to determining flame dynamics as the equivalence ratio transient changes the heat release rate distribution near corner recirculation zone and flame shear layers.


Author(s):  
C. P. Premchand ◽  
Nitin B. George ◽  
Manikandan Raghunathan ◽  
Vishnu R. Unni ◽  
R. I. Sujith ◽  
...  

Abstract Experiments are performed in a partially-premixed bluff-body stabilized turbulent combustor by varying the mean flow velocity. Simultaneous measurements obtained for unsteady pressure, velocity and heat release rate are used to investigate the dynamic regimes of intermittency (10.1 m/s) and thermoacoustic instability (12.3 m/s). Using wavelet analysis, we show that during intermittency, modulation of heat release rate occurring at the acoustic frequency fa by the heat release rate occurring at the hydrodynamic frequency fh results in epochs of heat release rate fluctuations where the heat release is phase locked with the acoustic pressure. We also show that the flame position during intermittency and thermoacoustic instability are essentially dictated by saddle point dynamics in the dump plane and the leading edge of the bluff-body.


Author(s):  
Jihang Li ◽  
Stephen Peluso ◽  
Domenic Santavicca ◽  
James Blust

Abstract The effect of a fully-premixed pilot flame on the velocity-forced flame response of a fully premixed flame in a single-nozzle lean-premixed swirl combustor operating on natural gas fuel is investigated. Measurements of the flame transfer function show that as the percent pilot is increased there is a decrease in the flame transfer function gain at all frequencies, a decrease in the frequencies at which the gain minima and maxima occurred, and a decrease in the flame transfer function phase at high frequencies. High-speed CH* chemiluminescence flame imaging is used to gain a better understanding of the mechanism(s) whereby the pilot flame affects flame dynamics and thereby the flame transfer function. Time-averaged flame images show that the location of the maximum heat release rate does not change with forcing frequency or percent pilot, although the flame extends further upstream into the inner shear layer with increasing percent pilot. Heat release rate fluctuation images show that significant heat release rate fluctuations occur in the inner shear layer, the outer recirculation zone, and the near wall region and that the primary effect of increasing the forcing frequency or the percent pilot is a shift of the heat release rate fluctuation from the near wall region to the inner shear layer. In addition, an increase in the percent pilot results in lengthening and narrowing of the inner shear layer and the near wall regions. The phase images show that the phase is less uniform as the frequency or percent pilot increase, resulting in greater interference between in phase and out of phase fluctuations which reduces the FTF gain. The phase images also show that the wavelength of the heat release rate perturbation travelling through the inner shear layer decreases with increasing frequency and percent pilot which suggests that the pilot flame alters the recirculation flow field. Flame transfer functions calculated for the heat release rate fluctuations in the inner shear layer, the near wall region and the outer recirculation zone show that the inner shear layer is the largest contributor to the global heat release rate fluctuation in the unpiloted flame and that the primary effect of the pilot flame on the reduction of the global FTF gain is a result of the pilot flame’s effect on the inner shear layer.


Author(s):  
Poravee Orawannukul ◽  
Bryan D. Quay ◽  
Domenic A. Santavicca

Knowledge of the effects of inlet velocity and inlet equivalence ratio fluctuations on the rate of heat release in lean premixed gas turbine combustors is essential for predicting combustor instability characteristics. This information is typically obtained from independent velocity-forced and fuel-forced flame transfer function measurements, where the global chemiluminescence intensity is used as a measure of the flame’s overall rate of heat release. The flame in an actual lean premixed combustor is referred to as a technically premixed flame and is exposed to both velocity and equivalence ratio fluctuations. Under these conditions the chemiluminescence intensity does not provide a reliable measure of the flame’s rate of heat release. The objective of this work is to experimentally assess the validity of a technique for making heat release rate measurements in technically premixed flames based on the linear superposition of fuel-forced and velocity-forced flame transfer function measurements. In the absence of a technique for directly measuring the heat release rate fluctuations in an air-forced technically premixed, the heat release reconstruction is validated indirectly by comparing measured to reconstructed chemiluminescence intensity fluctuations. Results are reported for a range of operating conditions and forcing frequencies which demonstrate the capabilities and limitations of this technique. A variation of this technique, referred to as a reverse reconstruction, is proposed which does not require a measurement of the fuel-forced flame transfer function. The air-forced flame transfer function gain and phase obtained using the reverse reconstruction technique are presented and compared to the results from the direct reconstruction technique.


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