(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2009-11-09)
Plaks, Dmitriy Vital
This 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.
(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.