• Journal of Mechanical Science and Technology
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• v.18 no.7
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• pp.1246-1257
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• 2004

The objective of this paper is to characterize dynamic pressure traces measured at self-excited combustion instabilities occurring in two combustion systems of different hardware. One system is a model lean premixed gas turbine combustor and the other a fullscale bipropellant liquid rocket thrust chamber. It is commonly observed in both systems that low frequency waves at around 300㎐ are first excited at the onset of combustion instabilities and after a short duration, the instability mode becomes coupled to the resonant acoustic modes of the combustion chamber, the first longitudinal mode for the lean premixed combustor and the first tangential mode for the rocket thrust chamber. Low frequency waves seem to get excited at first since flame shows the higher heat release response on the lower frequency perturbations with the smaller phase differences between heat release and pressure fluctuations. Nonlinear time series analysis of pressure traces reveals that even stable combustion might have chaotic behavior with the positive maximum Lyapunov exponent. Also, pressure fluctuations under combustion instabilities reach a limit cycle or quasi-periodic oscillations at the very similar run conditions, which manifest that a self-excited high frequency instability has strong nonlinear characteristics.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Combustion
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• v.6 no.2
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• pp.29-35
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• 2001

Unsteady numerical study has been conducted on combustion dynamics of a lean-premixed swirl-stabilized gas turbine swirl injector. A three-dimensional computation method utilizing the message passing interface (MPI) parallel architecture, large eddy simulation(LES), and proper orthogonal decomposition (POD) technique was applied. The unsteady turbulent flame dynamics are simulated so that the turbulent flame structure can be characterized in detail. It was observed that some fuel lumps escape from the primary combustion zone, and move downstream and consequently produce hot spots. Those flame dynamics coincides with experimental data. In addition, basis modes of the unsteady turbulent flame are characterized using proper orthogonal decomposition (POD) analysis. The flame structure based on odd basis modes is apparently larger than that of even ones. The flame structure can be extracted from the summation of the basis modes and eigenvectors at any moment.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers
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• v.15 no.6
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• pp.98-106
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• 2011

This paper reviews the state-of-the-art thermoacoustic(TA) modeling techniques and research trend to predict major parameters determining combustion instabilities in lean premixed gas turbine combustors. Linear TA modeling results give us an information on eigenfrequencies and initial growth rate of the instabilities. For the prediction, linear relation equation between acoustic waves and heat release oscillations should be derived in the determined system. Key information for this analysis is to determine the heat release fluctuations in the combustor, which is typically obtained by using n-${\tau}$ function from flame transfer function measurements and/or predictions. Great advancement in the linear TA modeling has been made over a couple of decades, and some successful prediction results have been reported in actual gas turbine combustors. However nonlinear TA model developments which are required to analyze nonlinear system behaviors such as limit cycle saturation and transition phenomena are still limited in a very simple system. In order to fully understand combustion instabilities in a complicated real system, nonlinear flame dynamics and acoustic wave interaction with nonlinear system boundary conditions should be explained from the nonlinear TA model developments.

• International Journal of Automotive Technology
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• v.2 no.3
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• pp.85-91
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• 2001

Characteristics of methane direct-injection spark-ignition stratified combustion in lean hydrogen mixture were analyzed both in a single cylinder engine and in a constant volume combustion chamber. Combustion pressure and Instantaneous combustion chamber wall temperature during the combustion process were measured with a thin-film thermocouple and used in analyses of combustion and cooling loss. Results in this research show that the premixed hydrogen increases cooling loss to combustion chamber wall while achieving combustion promotion, and the combustion system is effective especially in lean mixture conditions. Analysis of flame propagation was also done with Schlieren photography in the constant volume combustion chamber.

• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2000.04b
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• pp.422-427
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• 2000

Propagation characteristics of tribrachial flames have been investigated experimentally in both two-dimensional and axisymmetric counterflows. Mixture fraction gradient at stoichiometric location is controlled by varying equivalence ratios at the two nozzles, one of which maintains rich while the other lean premixture. Tribrachial flames propagating through these mixtures are investigated. The propagation speed of tribrachial flames in two-dimensional counterflow decreases with fuel concentration gradient and has much higher speed than the maximum speed predicted previously in two-dimensional mixing layers. From an analogy with premixed flame propagation, this excessively large propagation speed can be attributed to the tribrachial flame propagating with respect to burnt gas. Corresponding maximum speed in the limit of small mixture fraction gradient is estimated and extrapolated experimental results substantiate this limiting speed. As mixture fraction gradient approaches zero, a transition in propagation characteristics occurs, such that the propagation speed of tribrachial flame approaches stoichiometric laminar burning velocity with respect to burnt gas. Similar behavior has been obtained for tribrachial flames propagating in axisymmetric counterflow.

• 한국연소학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2013.06a
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• pp.9-10
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• 2013

This study reports the results of an experimental investigation of emission and temperatures from the syngas-air premixed flame with a various mixture composition in the region of large equivalence ratios. The effects of hydrogen contents and equivalence ratios on the flame velocity, which reported before, and emission of syngas fuel are examined. In this study, representative syngas mixture compositions ($H_2:CO$) such as $H_2:CO=10:90$, 25:75, 50:50 and 75:25 and equivalence ratios from 0.5 to 5.0 have been conducted. The emissions of syngas fuel were measured by the high precision analyzer with enclosure configuration and the adiabatic temperatures are calculated by used Chemkin basis. The NOx emission level is coincided relatively well with the adiabatic temperature distributions in lean mixture conditions, but for rich mixture conditions NOx level was also increased again even though the adiabatic temperature decreases. Such an increasing characteristics in rich mixture conditions is coincided well with the tendency that rather the flue gas temperature increases.

• Journal of Mechanical Science and Technology
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• v.16 no.12
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• pp.1710-1718
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• 2002

The effect of fuel concentration gradient on the propagation characteristics of tribrachial (or triple) flames has been investigated experimentally in both two-dimensional and axisymmetric counterflows. The gradient at the stoichiometric location was controlled by the equivalence ratios at the two nozzles; one of which is maintained rich, while the other lean. Results show that the displacement speed of tribrachial flames in the two-dimensional counterflow decreases with fuel concentration gradient and has much larger speed than the maximum speed predicted previously in two-dimensional mixing layers. From an analogy with premixed flame propagation, this excessively large displacement speed can be attributed to the flame propagation with respect to burnt gas. Corresponding maximum speed in the limit of small mixture fraction gradient was estimated and the curvefit of the experimental data substantiates this limiting speed. As mixture fraction gradient approaches zero, a transition occurs, such that the propagation speed of tribrachial flame approaches stoichiometric laminar burning velocity with respect to burnt gas. Similar results have been obtained for tribrachial flames propagating in axisymmetric counterflow.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers
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• v.15 no.4
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• pp.26-34
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• 2011

The present work addresses structural characteristics of natural gas flames in a lean premixed swirl-stabilized combustor with an attention focused on the effect of the formation of recirculation zones on the combustion instability. It is known that the recirculation zone plays an important role in stabilizing a turbulent, premixed natural gas flames by providing a source of heat or radicals to the incoming premixed fuel and air. To improve our understanding of the role of recirculation zones, the flame structure was investigated for various mixture velocities, equivalence ratios and swirl numbers. The optically accessible combustor allowed for the application of laser diagnostics, and Particle Image Velocimetry(PIV) measurements was used to characterize the flame structure under both cold flow conditions and hot flow conditions. Dynamic pressures were also measured to investigate characteristics of combustion at the same time. The results indicates that the formation of recirculation zone is strongly related to the occurrence of thermo-acoustic instabilities.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers Conference
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• 2011.04a
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• pp.445-452
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• 2011

The present work addresses structural characteristics of natural gas flames in a lean premixed swirl-stabilized combustor with an attention focused on the effect of the formation of recirculation zones on the combustion instability. It is known that the recirculation zone plays an important role in stabilizing a turbulent, premixed natural gas flames by providing a source of heat or radicals to the incoming premixed fuel and air. To improve our understanding of the role of recirculation zones, the flame structure was investigated for various mixture velocities, equivalence ratios and swirl numbers. The optically accessible combustor allowed for the application of laser diagnostics, and Particle Image Velocimetry(PIV) measurements was used to characterize the flame structure under both cold flow conditions and hot flow conditions. Dynamic pressures were also measured to investigate characteristics of combustion at the same time. The results indicates that the formation of recirculation zone is strongly related to the occurrence of thermo-acoustic instabilities.

• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2007.05b
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• pp.3452-3457
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• 2007

Experiments were carried out in an atmopheric pressure, lab-scale gas turbine combustor to see the effect of partial premixing on unstable flame structure and $NO_X$ emission characteristics. The swirl angle is 45 deg., fuel-air mixing degrees were varied 0, 50, and 100% respectively at equivalence ration ranging from 0.53 to 0.79. The evaluation of phased-locked OH chemiluminescence images were acquired with an ICCD. $NO_X$ emission characteristics were also investigated at each experimental condition. The effect of the fuel-air mixing degree on the flame structure was obtained from phase-locked $OH^*$ images. And it was obtained from local heat release characteristics that the information about the region which the combustion instability was amplified or damped. It also could be confirmed that ${\sigma}$ has greatly influence on $NO_X $emission characteristics at lean regimes. It would be expected that it could provide invaluable data for understanding the mechanism of combustion instability