Search

Thermoacoustic instabilities in gas turbines and aeroengine combustors fall within the category of complex systems. They can be described phenomenologically using nonlinear stochastic differential equations, which constitute the grounds for output-only model-based system identification. It has been shown recently that one can extract the governing parameters of the instabilities, namely the linear growth rate and the nonlinear component of the thermoacoustic feedback, using dynamic pressure time series only. This is highly relevant for practical systems, which cannot be actively controlled due to a lack of cost-effective actuators. The thermoacoustic stability is given by the linear growth rate, which results from the combination of the acoustic damping and the coherent feedback from the flame. In this paper, it is shown that it is possible to quantify the acoustic damping of the system, and thus to separate its contribution to the linear growth rate from the one of the flame. This is achieved by postprocessing in a simple way simultaneously acquired chemiluminescence and acoustic pressure data. It provides an additional approach to further unravel from observed time series the key mechanisms governing the system dynamics. This straightforward method is illustrated here using experimental data from a combustion chamber operated at several linearly stable and unstable operating conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper investigates the determination and the scaling of thermo acoustical characteristics of lean premixed flames as used in gas turbine combustion systems. In the first part, alternative methods to characterize experimentally the flame dynamics are outlined and are compared on the example of a scaled model of an industrial gas turbine burner. Transfer matrix results from the most general direct method are contrasted with data obtained from the hybrid method, which is based on Rankine-Hugoniot relations and the experimental flame transfer function obtained from OH*-chemiluminescence measurements. Also the new network model based regression method is assessed, which is based on a n - τ - σ dynamic flame model. The results indicate very good consistency between the three techniques, providing a global check of the methods/tools used for analyzing the thermo acoustic mechanisms of flames. In the second part, scaling rules are developed that allow to calculate the dynamic flame characteristics at different operation points. Towards this a geometric flame length model is formulated. Together with the other operational data of the flame it provides the dynamic flame model parameters at these points. The comparison between the measured and modeled flame lengths as well as the n - τ - σ parameters shows an excellent agreement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents an experimental method to determine the thermoacoustic properties of a gas turbine combustor using a lean-premixed low emission swirl stabilized burner. Effects of thermoacoustic combustion instabilities; Noise generation in combustors; Determination of the flame transfer function.

The article presents the supplementary material for the article "Quantifying acoustic damping using flame chemiluminescence" by E. Boujo and colleagues.

A design for thermo-acoustic stability (DeTAS) procedure is presented, that aims at selecting a most stable burner geometry for a given combustor. It is based on the premise that a thermo-acoustic stability model of the combustor can be formulated and that a burner design exists, which has geometric design parameters that sufficiently influence the dynamics of the flame. Describing the burner and flame dynamics in dependence of the geometrical parameters an optimization procedure involving a linear stability model of the target combustor maximizes the damping and thereby yields the optimal geometrical parameters. To demonstrate the procedure on an existing annular combustor a generic burner design was developed that features two geometrical parameters that can easily be adjusted. To provide the database for the DeTAS procedure static and dynamical properties of burner and flame were measured for three by three configurations at a fixed operation point. The data is presented and discussed. It is found that the chosen design exhibits a significant variability of the flame dynamics in dependence of the geometrical parameters indicating that a DeTAS should be possible for the targeted annular combustor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A design for thermo-acoustic stability (DeTAS) procedure is presented that aims at selecting the most stable burner geometry for a given combustor. It is based on the premise that a thermo-acoustic stability model of the combustor can be formulated and that a burner design exists, which has geometric design parameters that sufficiently influence the dynamics of the flame. Describing the flame dynamics in dependence of the geometrical parameters, an optimization procedure involving a linear stability model of the target combustor, maximizes the damping and thereby yields the optimal geometrical parameters. To demonstrate the procedure on an existing annular combustor a generic burner design was developed that features significant variability of dynamical flam e response in dependence of two geometrical parameters. In this paper the experimentally determined complex burner acoustics and complex flam e responses are described in terms o f physics-based parametric models with excellent agreement between experimental and model data. It is shown that these model parameters correlate uniquely with the variation of the burner geometrical parameters, allowing interpolating the model with respect to the geometrical parameters. The interpolation is validated with experimental data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]