Study the Effect of Air Pulsation on the Flame Characteristics

Pulsating combustion is used in a lot of industrial applications like conveyer drying, spray, boilers of commercial scale because its great role in increasing combustion efficiency and producing environmentally friendly combustion products. This paper evaluates how different frequencies (100, 200, 300, 400 and 500) rad/s applied to air velocity view a lot of improvements in the combustion and flow variables (v, T, NO and turbulent kinetic energy) and the effect of adding cross excess air to air pulsation with 500 rad/s frequency on the same flow variables. The performance of pulsating flames was numerically modulated by using Ansys Fluent 16 commercial package by building a 2D combustion chamber of Harwell standard furnace boundary condition on Ansys geometry and divided it into 61000 elements in Ansys meshing 16. Eddy Dissipation Model (EDM) is used to solve transient numerical combustion equations and Detached Eddy Simulation (DES) as viscous model. Converged numerical results have shown that increasing frequency from 100 to 500 rad/s increase average velocities of combustion products and turbulent kinetic energy by 22% and 80 respectively. The pollutant NO decrease by 60% and the time average temperature decrease from 1900 k to 1000 k.

The evolution of local instability regions in turbulent non-premixed flames

Unsteady turbulent flame evolution in non-premixed combustion has been computationally investigated using large eddy simulations. A simple coaxial combustion chamber, subjected to highly unsteady, turbulent recirculating flow is considered, following the experimental study of Owen et al. (Proc. Combust. Inst., vol. 16, 1976, pp. 105–117). Large-scale flame fluctuations, reported in the above experimental study, such as pulsating flames in swirling and non-swirling conditions, were identified here in our computation. New criteria for flame three-dimensional inhomogeneity are suggested and implemented in the present study, providing the ability to quantify the flame unsteadiness. Using this technique, it is shown that local, large quenched regions develop in the flame’s mixing area and rotate continuously, even when swirl is not imposed on the inlet. However, this rotation appears to be disordered, abruptly changing its direction. On the other hand, our study shows that when swirl is imposed on the inlet, a larger quenched region is identified, rotating in steady ordered rotation in the direction of the imposed swirl. In addition, large-scale radial flame fluctuations are increased downstream with the increase of swirl number. Consequently, significant correlations between radial and circumferential flame fluctuation frequencies were retrieved. Proper orthogonal decomposition analysis reveals coherent flame structures of five dominant modes that contain most of the energy in the fluctuating flame. A simplified analytical stability model is derived and implemented here to assess the hydrodynamic contribution to the flame instability; it is shown that radial fluctuations are excited by circumferential perturbations in the mixing region, providing new insight into the mechanism responsible for the onset of radial fluctuations. The computed radial flame fluctuation spectrum is predicted well using the linear stability analysis. Thus, our findings may therefore be applicable to a large class of non-premixed turbulent combustion problems.

Phase-Resolved Laser Diagnostic Measurements of a Downscaled, Fuel-Staged Gas Turbine Combustor at Elevated Pressure and Comparison to LES Predictions

A technical gas turbine combustor has been studied in detail with optical diagnostics for validation of large-eddy simulations (LES). OH* chemiluminescence, OH laser-induced fluorescence (LIF) and particle image velocimetry (PIV) have been applied to stable and pulsating flames up to 8 bar. The combination of all results yielded good insight into the combustion process with this type of burner and forms a database that was used for the validation of complex numerical combustion simulations. LES, including radiation, convective cooling, and air cooling, were combined with a reduced chemical scheme that predicts NOx emissions. Good agreement of the calculated flame position and shape with experimental data was found.

Phase Resolved Laser Diagnostic Measurements of a Downscaled, Fuel Staged Gas Turbine Combustor at Elevated Pressure and Comparison With LES Predictions

A technical gas turbine combustor has been studied in detail with optical diagnostics for validation of Large-Eddy Simulations (LES). OH* chemiluminescence, OH laser-induced fluorescence (LIF) and particle image velocimetry (PIV) have been applied to stable and pulsating flames up to 8 bar. The combination of all results yielded a good insight into the combustion process with this type of burner and forms a data base which was used for the validation of complex numerical combustion simulations. Large-Eddy Simulations (LES) including radiation, convective cooling and air cooling were combined with a reduced chemical scheme that predicts NOx emissions. Good agreement of the calculated flame position and shape with experimental data was found.