The response of a conical flame to a dual-frequency excitation

Abstract

This work investigates the response of a conical premixed flame to a dual-frequency excitation, based on the integrated CH* signal collected from a photomultiplier tube (PMT), the upstream velocity disturbance measured by a hotwire, and the chemiluminescence signal captured by high-speed imaging. The results show that, in addition to the excitation frequencies, a notable flame response can also be observed at the difference frequency, where the corresponding velocity fluctuation is relatively small. This result means that, at the difference frequency, the velocity fluctuation contributes little to the flame response. Such interacted response generally occurs at intermediate excitation frequencies but tends to disappear as either excitation frequency is below the cut-off frequency. And it increases linearly with the excitation amplitude, with nearly zero dependence on the phase difference. Furthermore, the flame front is extracted based on the chemiluminescence images to analyze the flame area fluctuation. The resultant phase response implies that the fluctuation of the difference frequency propagates downstream convectively, similar to that of the excitation frequencies. Interestingly, the flame area fluctuation at the difference frequency shows significant response and a low-pass characteristic, whereas the CH* fluctuation approaches zero at those low frequencies.