Heat release rate and pressure fluctuation of lean premixed flame at different forcing levels

Author(s):  
Aniekan Okon ◽  
Hayder Kurji ◽  
Agustin Medina ◽  
Yiqin Xue
Author(s):  
Janith Samarasinghe ◽  
Wyatt Culler ◽  
Bryan D. Quay ◽  
Domenic A. Santavicca ◽  
Jacqueline O'Connor

Fuel staging is a commonly used strategy in the operation of gas turbine engines. In multinozzle combustor configurations, this is achieved by varying fuel flow rate to different nozzles. The effect of fuel staging on flame structure and self-excited instabilities is investigated in a research can combustor employing five swirl-stabilized, lean-premixed nozzles. At an operating condition where all nozzles are fueled equally and the combustor undergoes a self-excited instability, fuel staging successfully suppresses the instability: both when overall equivalence ratio is increased by staging as well as when overall equivalence ratio is kept constant while staging. Increased fuel staging changes the distribution of time-averaged heat release rate in the regions where adjacent flames interact and reduces the amplitudes of heat release rate fluctuations in those regions. Increased fuel staging also causes a breakup in the monotonic phase behavior that is characteristic of convective disturbances that travel along a flame. In particular, heat release rate fluctuations in the middle flame and flame–flame interaction region are out-of-phase with those in the outer flames, resulting in a cancelation of the global heat release rate oscillations. The Rayleigh integral distribution within the combustor shows that during a self-excited instability, the regions of highest heat release rate fluctuation are in phase-with the combustor pressure fluctuation. When staging fuel is introduced, these regions fluctuate out-of-phase with the pressure fluctuation, further illustrating that fuel staging suppresses instabilities through a phase cancelation mechanism.


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.


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

Author(s):  
Yipin Lu ◽  
Yinli Xiao ◽  
Juan Wu ◽  
Liang Chen

Lean premixed combustion is a common form of combustion organization in power equipment and propulsion systems. In order to understand the dynamic characteristics of lean premixed flame and predict and control its combustion instability, it is necessary to obtain its flame describing function (FDF). Based on the open source CFD toolbox, OpenFOAM, the dynamic K-equation model, and the finite rate Partially Stirred Reactor (PaSR) model were used to perform large eddy simulations (LES) of lean premixed combustion, and the response of the unsteady heat release rate to single-frequency harmonic disturbances was studied. The response of the unsteady heat release rate was characterized by the FDF, and the response of the unsteady heat release rate to the two-frequency harmonic disturbance was studied. The results show that the quantitative heat release rate response and flame dynamics have very proper accuracy. In the single-frequency harmonic disturbance, as the forcing frequency increases, the curling behavior of the flame surface and the instantaneous vortex structure change; the nonlinear kinematics effect is manifested by the entrainment of the vortex. At lower forcing frequencies, the heat release response changes linearly with the increase of forcing amplitude; at intermediate frequencies, the heat release response exhibits obvious nonlinear behavior; at high frequencies, the heat release response to amplitude changes decreases. The introduction of the second harmonic disturbance will significantly reduce the response range of the total heat release rate and make the combustion more stable.


Author(s):  
Davide Laera ◽  
Sergio M. Camporeale

Modern combustion chambers of gas turbines for power generation and aero-engines suffer of thermo-acoustic combustion instabilities generated by the coupling of heat release rate fluctuations with pressure oscillations. The present article reports a numerical analysis of limit cycles arising in a longitudinal combustor. This corresponds to experiments carried out on the longitudinal rig for instability analysis (LRIA) test facility equipped with a full-scale lean-premixed burner. Heat release rate fluctuations are modeled considering a distributed flame describing function (DFDF), since the flame under analysis is not compact with respect to the wavelengths of the unstable modes recorded experimentally. For each point of the flame, a saturation model is assumed for the gain and the phase of the DFDF with increasing amplitude of velocity fluctuations. A weakly nonlinear stability analysis is performed by combining the DFDF with a Helmholtz solver to determine the limit cycle condition. The numerical approach is used to study two configurations of the rig characterized by different lengths of the combustion chamber. In each configuration, a good match has been found between numerical predictions and experiments in terms of frequency and wave shape of the unstable mode. Time-resolved pressure fluctuations in the system plenum and chamber are reconstructed and compared with measurements. A suitable estimate of the limit cycle oscillation is found.


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.


Author(s):  
Janith Samarasinghe ◽  
Wyatt Culler ◽  
Bryan D. Quay ◽  
Domenic A. Santavicca ◽  
Jacqueline O’Connor

Fuel staging, or fuel splitting, is a commonly used strategy for the suppression of combustion instabilities in gas turbine engines. In multi-nozzle combustor configurations, this is achieved by varying the fuel flow rate to the different nozzles. The effect of fuel staging on flame stabilization and heat release rate distribution (referred to as flame structure), and self-excited instability characteristics is investigated in a research can combustor employing five small-scale lean-premixed industrial nozzles. The nozzles are arranged in a “four-around-one” configuration and fuel staging is achieved by injecting additional fuel to the middle nozzle. An operating condition was identified where all five nozzles were fueled equally and the combustor was subject to a self-excited instability. At the operating condition considered, the self-excited instabilities are suppressed with fuel staging: this is true for cases where overall equivalence ratio is increased by staging (by only increasing the fuel flow rate to the middle nozzle) as well as cases where overall equivalence ratio is kept constant while staging (by simultaneously decreasing the fuel flow rate of the outer nozzles while increasing the fuel flow rate to the middle nozzle). Fuel staging causes variations in the distribution of time-averaged heat release rate in the regions where adjacent flames interact. The locations of highest heat release rate fluctuation are not altered with increased fuel staging but the fluctuation amplitude is reduced. A breakup in the monotonic phase behavior that is characteristic of convective disturbances is observed with increased fuel staging, resulting in a lower pressure fluctuation amplitude. In particular, the monotonic variation in phase in the middle flame and the region where adjacent flames interact is out-of-phase with that of the outer flames, resulting in a cancellation of the global heat release rate oscillations. The distribution of local Rayleigh integral within the combustor shows that during a self-excited instability, the regions of highest heat release rate fluctuation are in phase-with the pressure fluctuation. When staging fuel is introduced, these regions fluctuate out-of-phase with the pressure fluctuation, further illustrating that fuel staging suppresses instabilities by altering the phase relationship of convective disturbances that travel along the flame front.


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

Understanding the effects of inlet velocity and inlet equivalence ratio fluctuations on heat release rate fluctuations 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. Current lean premixed combustors operate in a technically premixed mode where the flame is exposed to both velocity and equivalence ratio fluctuations and, as a result, the chemiluminescence intensity does not provide an accurate measure of the flame's rate of heat release. The objective of this work is to experimentally assess the validity of a technique for measuring heat release rate fluctuations 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 heat release rate fluctuations in technically premixed flames, the heat release rate reconstruction is validated indirectly by comparing measured and reconstructed chemiluminescence intensity fluctuations. The results are reported for a range of operating conditions and forcing frequencies which demonstrate the capabilities and limitations of the heat release rate reconstruction technique. A variation of this technique, referred to as a reverse reconstruction, is also proposed, which does not require a measurement of the fuel-forced flame transfer function. The results obtained using the reverse reconstruction technique are presented and compared to the results from the direct reconstruction technique.


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