On the two approaches for the combustion instability predictions in a long-flame combustor

Abstract

This paper presents a detailed comparative analysis and discussion of two typical predictive methods for combustion instability in long flame combustion chambers: the coupled method and the decoupled method. Using large eddy simulation (LES), the coupled method directly predicts stability in typical long flame combustion chambers. In the decoupled method, stability in the combustion chamber is predicted by combining a low-order acoustic network for long flames with flame responses and mean parameters from numerical simulations. The research results indicate that the coupled method provides full-field information, while the decoupled method neglects certain factors, such as the coupling between combustion and acoustics. However, the decoupled method can directly determine combustion instability based on the growth rate of oscillation modes. The flow field undergoes periodic changes, with the region of fluctuation in the combustion heat release rate gradually increasing, resembling vortex development, which ruptures upon encountering the wall due to radial constraints. Furthermore, in the decoupled method, the periodic changes in the flow field are controlled by the frequency of incoming flow disturbances, whereas in the coupled method, they are controlled by the acoustic frequency of the combustion chamber. In the coupled method, the coupling among disturbances and the acoustic disturbances at the boundaries amplifies the disturbances, causing the radial scale of the fluctuation region in the combustion heat release rate to increase along the axial direction and approach a fixed value faster than in the decoupled method.