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Daniel Guggenheim School of Aerospace Engineering
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ItemDynamics of longitudinally forced bluff body flames with varying dilatation ratios(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2009-11-09) Plaks, Dmitriy VitalThis thesis focuses on experimentally measuring the response of varying dilatation ratio bluff body flames under harmonic excitation. Such flames are often encountered in jet engine afterburners and are susceptible to combustion instabilities. Previous work has been done modeling such flames, however, only limited experimental data has been obtained at these conditions and is the motivation for this thesis. The focus of this work is to measure the transfer function of longitudinally forced, varying dilatation ratio bluff body flames. The transfer function is obtained by measuring flame position and flame luminosity fluctuations at the forcing frequency. Specifically, the amplitude and phase of the fluctuations are characterized as a function of flow velocity, axial location, and perturbation amplitude. These measurements are also compared to available theoretical predictions, showing that qualitative measured trends are consistent with theory. In addition, a detailed quantitative comparison is performed at one condition, showing good agreement between predictions and measurements in the near and mid-field of the flame response. However, agreement is not obtained in the far-field, indicating that continued theoretical work is needed to understand the flame response characteristics in this region.
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ItemDynamics of turbulent premixed flames in acoustic fields(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2009-05-13) Hemchandra, SantoshThis thesis describes computational and theoretical studies of fundamental physical processes that influence the heat-release response of turbulent premixed flames to acoustic forcing. Attached turbulent flames, as found in many practical devices, have a non-zero mean velocity component tangential to the turbulent flame brush. Hence, flame surface wrinkles generated at a given location travel along the flame sheet while being continuously modified by local flow velocity disturbances, thereby, causing the flame sheet to respond in a non-local manner to upstream turbulence fluctuations. The correlation length and time scales of these flame sheet motions are significantly different from those of the upstream turbulence fluctuations. These correlation lengths and times increase with turbulence intensity, due to the influence of kinematic restoration. This non-local nature of flame sheet wrinkling (called 'non-locality') results in a spatially varying distribution of local consumption speed (i.e. local mass burning rate) even when the upstream flow statistics are isotropic and stationary. Non-locality and kinematic restoration result in coupling between the responses of the flame surface to coherent acoustic forcing and random turbulent fluctuations respectively, thereby, causing the coherent ensemble averaged component of the global heat-release fluctuation to be different in magnitude and phase from its nominal (laminar) value even in the limit of small coherent forcing amplitudes (i.e. linear forcing limit). An expression for this correction, derived from an asymptotic analysis to leading order in turbulence intensity, shows that its magnitude decreases with increasing forcing frequency because kinematic restoration limits flame surface wrinkling amplitudes. Predictions of ensemble averaged heat release response from a different, generalized modeling approach using local consumption and displacement speed distributions from unforced analysis shows good agreement with the exact asymptotic result at low frequencies.
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ItemDynamics of perturbed exothermic bluff-body flow-fields(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2008-07-08) Shanbhogue, Santosh JanardhanThis thesis describes research on acoustically excited bluff body flow-fields, motivated by the problem of combustion instabilities in devices utilizing these types of flame-holders. Vortices/convective-structures play a dominant role in perturbing the flame during these combustion instabilities. This thesis addresses a number of issues related to the origin, evolution and the interaction of these structures with the flame. The first part of this thesis reviews the fluid mechanics of non-reacting and reacting bluff body flows. The second part describes the spatio/temporal characteristics of bluff-body flames responding to excitation. The key processes controlling the flame response have been identified as 1) the anchoring of the flame at the bluff body, 2) the excitation of flame-front wrinkles by the oscillating velocity field and 3) flame propagation normal to itself at the local flame speed. The first two processes control the growth of the flame response and the last process controls the decay. The third part of this thesis describes the effect of acoustic excitation on the velocity field of reacting bluff body flows. Acoustic disturbances excite the Kelvin-Helmholtz (KH) instability of the reacting shear layer. This leads to a spatially decaying vorticity field downstream of the bluff body in the shear layers. The length over which the decay occurs was shown to scale with the length of the recirculation zone of the bluff body, i.e. the length over which the velocity profile transitions from shear layer to wake. The flame influences this decay process in two ways. Gas expansion across the flame reduces the extent of shear by reducing the magnitude of negative velocities within the recirculation zone. This combined with the higher product diffusivity reduces the length of the recirculation zone, thereby further augmenting the decay of the vorticity fluctuations. Lastly, these results also revealed phase jitter - a cycle-to-cycle variation in the position of the rolled-up vortices. Close to the bluff-body, phase jitter is very low but increases monotonically in the downstream direction. This leads to significant differences between instantaneous and ensemble averaged flow fields and, in particular, the decay rate of the vorticity in the downstream direction.
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ItemLean blowoff characteristics of swirling H2/CO/CH4 Flames(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2008-03-05) Zhang, QingguoThis thesis describes an experimental investigation of lean blowoff for H2/CO/CH4 mixtures in a swirling combustor. This investigation consisted of three thrusts. The first thrust focused on correlations of the lean blowoff limits of H2/CO/CH4 mixtures under different test conditions. It was found that a classical Damköhler number approach with a diffusion correction could correlate blowoff sensitivities to fuel composition over a range of conditions. The second part of this thesis describes the qualitative flame dynamics near blowoff by systematically characterizing the blowoff phenomenology as a function of hydrogen level in the fuel. These near blowoff dynamics are very complex, and are influenced by both fluid mechanics and chemical kinetics; in particular, the role of thermal expansion across the flame and extinction strain rate were suggested to be critical in describing these influences. The third part of this thesis quantitatively analyzed strain characteristics in the vicinity of the attachment point of stable and near blowoff flames. Surprisingly, it was found that in this shear layer stabilized flame, flow deceleration is the key contributor to flame strain, with flow shear playing a relatively negligible role. Near the premixer exit, due to strong flow deceleration, the flame is negatively strained i.e., compressed. Moving downstream, the strain rate increases towards zero and then becomes positive, where flames are stretched. As the flame moves toward blowoff, holes begin to form in the flame sheet, with a progressively higher probability of occurrence as one moves downstream. It is suggested that new holes form with a more uniform probability, but that this behavior reflects the convection of flame holes downstream by the flow. It has been shown in prior studies, and affirmed in this work, that flames approach blowoff by first passing through a transient phase manifested by local extinction events and the appearance of holes on the flame. A key conclusion of this work is that the onset of this boundary occurs at a nearly constant extinction strain rate. As such, it is suggested that Damköhler number scalings do not describe blowoff itself, but rather the occurrence of this first stage of blowoff. Given the correspondence between this first stage and the actual blowoff event, this explains the success of classical Damköhler number scalings in describing blowoff, such as shown in the first thrust of this thesis. The physics process associated with the actual blowoff event is still unclear and remains a key task for future work.
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ItemAnalysis of blowoff scaling of bluff body stabilized flames(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2008-01-15) Husain, Sajjad A.Bluff body stabilization of flames is a commonly employed technique for combustion applications, such as thrust augmentors. These combustors are usually required to operate at lean conditions governed by a lower stability limit on combustion denoted by lean blow off. Lean blow off is believed to be a dynamically unstable phenomenon that leads to flame extinction or convection from a stable, usually desired, point in space. Current theories predict lean blow off based on models that were developed over specific domain of inflow parameters. This thesis sought to compile, re-evaulate, and analyze past blowoff data presented in literature using time scale correlations, Damkohler numbers, by employing modern chemical kinetic solvers to approximate characteristic chemical times. The research has conclusively shown that it is possible to express blowoff data for multiple flow conditions using a power law relationship between Damkohler number and Reynolds numbers. From the analysis of this power law relations, trends are validated using past empirical observations, and some new information regarding flame stability is also conveyed.
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ItemHigh Frequency Acoustic Wave Scattering From Turbulent Premixed Flames(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2008-01-10) Narra, VenkateswarluThis thesis describes an experimental investigation of high frequency acoustic wave scattering from turbulent premixed flames. The objective of this work was to characterize the scattered incoherent acoustic field and determine its parametric dependence on frequency, flame brush thickness, incident and measurement angles, mean velocity and flame speed. The experimental facility consists of a slot burner with a flat flame sheet that is approximately 15 cm wide and 12 cm tall. The baseline cold flow characteristics and flame sheet statistics were extensively characterized. Studies were performed over a wide range of frequencies (1-24 kHz) in order to characterize the role of the incident acoustic wave length. The spectrum of the scattered acoustic field showed distinct incoherent spectral sidebands on either side of the driving frequency. The scattered incoherent field was characterized in terms of the incoherent field strength and spectral bandwidth and related to the theoretical predictions. The role of the flame front wrinkling scale, i.e., flame brush thickness, was also studied. Flame brush thickness was varied independent of the mean velocity and flame speed by using a variable turbulence generator. Results are reported for five flame brush thickness cases, ranging from 1.2 mm to 5.2 mm. Some dependence of scattered field characteristics on flame brush thickness was observed, but the magnitude of the effect was much smaller than expected from theoretical considerations. The spatial dependence of the scattered field was investigated by measuring the scattered field at four measurement angles and exciting the flame at four incident angles. Theory predicts that these variations influence the spatial scale of the acoustic wave normal to the flame, a result confirmed by the measurements. Measurements were performed for multiple combinations of mean velocities and flame speeds. The scattered field was observed to depend strongly on the flame speed. Further analysis suggested that the change in orientation angle distribution with flame speed had a large influence on the scattered field. The scattered field characteristics did not show any appreciable change with mean velocity. This result was expected since flame brush thickness characteristics themselves exhibit a weak velocity dependence.
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ItemCharacteristics of Sound Radiation from Turbulent Premixed Flames(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2007-11-08) Rajaram, RajeshTurbulent combustion processes are inherently unsteady and, thus, a source of acoustic radiation, which occurs due to the unsteady expansion of reacting gases. While prior studies have extensively characterized the total sound power radiated by turbulent flames, their spectral characteristics are not well understood. The objective of this research work is to measure the flow and acoustic properties of an open turbulent premixed jet flame and explain the spectral trends of combustion noise. The flame dynamics were characterized using high speed chemiluminescence images of the flame. A model based on the solution of the wave equation with unsteady heat release as the source was developed and was used to relate the measured chemiluminescence fluctuations to its acoustic emission. Acoustic measurements were performed in an anechoic environment for several burner diameters, flow velocities, turbulence intensities, fuels, and equivalence ratios. The acoustic emissions are shown to be characterized by four parameters: peak frequency (Fpeak), low frequency slope (beta), high frequency slope (alpha) and Overall Sound Pressure Level (OASPL). The peak frequency (Fpeak) is characterized by a Strouhal number based on the mean velocity and a flame length. The transfer function between the acoustic spectrum and the spectrum of heat release fluctuations has an f^2 dependence at low frequencies, while it converged to a constant value at high frequencies. Furthermore, the OASPL was found to be characterized by (Fpeak mfH)^2, which resembles the source term in the wave equation.
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ItemModeling the Response of Premixed Flames to Flow Disturbances(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2007-09-27) Preetham, PreethamModeling the Response of Premixed Flames to Flow Disturbances Preetham 178 pages Directed by Tim Lieuwen Low emissions combustion systems for land based gas turbines rely on a premixed or partially premixed combustion process. These systems are exceptionally prone to combustion instabilities which are destructive to hardware and adversely affect performance and emissions. The success of dynamics prediction codes is critically dependent on the heat release model which couples the flame dynamics to the system acoustics. So the principal objective of the current research work is to predict the heat release response of premixed flames and to isolate the key non-dimensional parameters which characterize its linear and nonlinear dynamics. Explicit analytical solutions of the G- equation are derived in the linear and weakly nonlinear regime using the Small Perturbation Method (SPM). For the fully nonlinear case, the flame-flow interaction effects are captured by developing an unsteady, compressible, coupled Euler-G-equation solver with a Ghost Fluid Method (GFM) module for applying the jump conditions across the flame. The flame s nonlinear response is shown to exhibit two qualitatively different behaviors. Depending on the operating conditions and the disturbance field characteristics, it is shown that a combustor may exhibit supercritical bifurcations leading to a single stable limit cycle amplitude or exhibit sub-critical bifurcations wherein multiple stable solutions for the instability amplitude are possible. In addition, this study presents the first analytical model which captures the effects of unsteady flame stretch on the heat release response and thus extends the applicability of current models to high frequency instabilities, such as occurring during screech. It is shown that unsteady stretch effects, negligible at low frequencies (100 s of Hz) become significant at screeching frequencies (1000 s of Hz). Furthermore, the analysis also yields insight into the significant spatial dependence of the mean and perturbation velocity field induced by the coupling between the flame and the flow field. In order to meaningfully compare the heat release response across different flame configurations, this study has identified that the reference velocity (for defining the transfer function) should be based on the effective normal velocity perturbing the flame and the Strouhal number should be based on the effective residence time of the flame wrinkles.