Thermoacoustic Flame Response of Swirl Flames

Abstract

The operating range of heavy duty gas turbines featuring lean premix combustion to achieve low Nox emissions may be limited by thermoacoustic oscillations. The most promising way to extend the operational envelope of the gas turbine is to modify the burner outlet conditions which itself strongly affect the flame response on acoustic perturbations. The objective of the present paper is the analysis and prediction of the flame response of premixed swirl flames which are typical for gas turbine combustion. The flame response has been determined experimentally by measuring the velocity fluctuations of a forced pulsated burner flow with hot wire probes and the resulting heat release fluctuations OH radiation. The experimentally determined flame response function for the swirl premixed flame follows almost a time lag law. Hence, reasonable agreement has been found between measurements and calculations using a time lag model.