Effects of the Injector Design on the Transfer Function of Premixed Swirling Flames

Abstract

This article reports a series of experiments on the dynamics of lean-premixed swirl-stabilized flames submitted to harmonic flowrate modulations. The flame transfer function is analyzed for different injector designs with a specific focus on conditions leading to the lowest heat release rate response for a given flowrate perturbation. Experiments are carried out at a fixed equivalence ratio and fixed thermal power. Transfer functions are measured for radial swirling vanes by modifying the diameter of the swirler injection holes, the diameter of the injection tube at the top of the swirler and the end piece diameter of a central insert serving as a bluff body. It is found that the lowest response depends on the forcing frequency and is obtained when the injector design features the largest swirl number. The transfer function of the studied flames features a minimum gain value which decreases for increasing swirl levels. This minimum value is found to be independent of the velocity forcing level and is only controlled by the level of swirl. An excessive swirl level however leads to flash-back of the perturbed flames inside the injector. The way the flame behaves at this forcing frequency is analyzed for a set of injectors featuring the same radial swirling vane design and different injection tube diameters or conical end pieces. It is found that at the condition corresponding to the lowest FTF gain, i.e. the injector with the largest swirl number, the upper and lower parts of the flame contribute to out of phase heat release oscillations, but they also both feature a reduced level of fluctuations. When the swirl number decreases, the FTF gain increases due to a reduction of the phase lag between heat release rate oscillations in the lower and the upper parts of the flame and more importantly due to a general increase of the level of heat release oscillations in both parts of the flame.