High-speed laser diagnostics for the study of flame dynamics in a lean premixed gas turbine model combustor

A series of measurements was taken on two technically premixed, swirl-stabilized methane-air flames (at overall equivalence ratios of ϕ = 0.73 and 0.83) in an optically accessible gas turbine model combustor. The primary diagnostics used were combined planar laser-induced fluorescence of the OH radical and stereoscopic particle image velocimetry (PIV) with simultaneous repetition rates of 10 kHz and a measurement duration of 0.8 s. Also measured were acoustic pulsations and OH chemiluminescence. Analysis revealed strong local periodicity in the thermoacoustically self-excited (or ‘noisy’) flame (ϕ = 0.73) in the regions of the flow corresponding to the inner shear layer and the jet-inflow. This periodicity appears to be the result of a helical precessing vortex core (PVC) present in that region of the combustor. The PVC has a precession frequency double (at 570 Hz) that of the thermo-acoustic pulsation (at 288 Hz). A comparison of the various data sets and analysis techniques applied to each flame suggests a strong coupling between the PVC and the thermo-acoustic pulsation in the noisy flame. Measurements of the stable (‘quiet’) flame (ϕ = 0.83) revealed a global fluctuation in both velocity and heat-release around 364 Hz, but no clear evidence of a PVC.

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