Partially Premixed Flames Research Articles

Stability analysis of premixed flames with downstream heat gain

Pulsating instability is a kind of combustion intrinsic instability, that can affect the flammable limit and may couple with other processes to generate more complex combustion instability phenomena. Pulsating instability was found in the premixed flame of the double-flame partially premixed flame (PPF), in which the flame patterns change from stable to pulsating unstable, and to stable again as the equivalence ratio or stretch rate increases. To further investigate this phenomenon, a simpler model, stretched premixed flames with downstream heat gain, is analyzed by the asymptotic expansion method in this paper. The downstream heat gain inhibits the steady extinction of stretched premixed flames with a large Zeldovich number. The stability of premixed flames changes in the zero-limit mode, two-limits mode and one-limit mode sequentially as the Zeldovich number increases. The zero-limit mode represents the premixed flame is stable for all stretch rates. The two-limit mode and one-limit represent the premixed flame changes in the pattern of stable-pulsating-stable and pulsating-stable as the stretch rate increases, respectively. The downstream heat gain suppresses the pulsating instability to yield the stable region at the large stretch rate and large Zeldovich number. The influence of other factors, including the Lewis number, the downstream temperature and the downstream boundary position are also discussed. The current theoretical method is also applied to the extracted parameters from numerical calculations of hydrogen/air double-flame PPF. A qualitative similarity is found between the theoretical results and numerical results.

Numerical modeling of combustion in gas engines with prechamber ignition

A numerical model is developed to predict the combustion processes in large-bore gas engines featuring prechamber ignition systems and being coupled with Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD). The proposed combustion model is based on the simultaneous modeling of premixed and partially-premixed flames by an extended progress variable approach. By introducing an additional fuel scalar to track the externally injected fuel of the scavenged prechamber and depending on a gradient criteria of the fuel scalar, regions of locally premixed or partially-premixed state can be differentiated. The reaction rate for premixed combustion is described through a turbulent flame speed closure approach, whereas the partially-premixed combustion is described by a pre-tabulated flamelet chemistry approach. For the validation of the combustion model and its performance in the different flame propagation phases, that is, prechamber flame ignition and main-chamber flame propagation, experimental data of two large-bore gas engines with different operating conditions, prechamber configurations and engine geometries are taken into account. A good agreement of the simulations with the experimental results is shown for the variety of operating conditions and engine configurations. The developed combustion model is able to predict the combustion process in the prechamber as well as the ignition of the main chamber charge by means of the protruding flame jets through the prechamber nozzles. The prechamber ignition system accelerates the early flame phase and hence shortens the burning duration due to the deep-penetrating and turbulence-inducing flame jets in comparison to a conventional spark plug engine.

Characterization of a 5-nozzle array using premix/micromix injection for hydrogen

Hydrogen is one of the most promising fuels to decarbonize energy systems since it has a high specific energy, a carbon-free combustion process, and may be produced sustainably through electrolysis. Direct fuel drop-in replacement cannot be done in traditional lean, premixed combustion burners because of the high reactivity of the hydrogen-air mixture and its inherently unstable nature that might lead to flashback and hardware failure. Consequently, new injection strategies and burner geometries are investigated to mitigate these risks. Here we present hydrogen capabilities of a premix/micromix injector that relies on a two-staged fuel injection strategy to offer wide fuel flexible capability (methane to hydrogen) within a single design. Five injectors are placed in a cross-shaped array to simulate a sector found in multi-element combustion systems. Stability and combustion dynamics maps are obtained for the array and OH planar laser-induced fluorescence (PLIF) provides additional insight into the combustion process of these novel burners when placed in an array. The use of micromixing is shown to drastically improve the acoustics of this geometry and expand the flashback limits compared to the fully premixed configuration. Significant variability in flashback limits are observed for different additively-manufactured injector configurations. Phase-averaged OH-PLIF measurements, obtained by registering the acquisition with the acoustics module, and the 3D reconstruction of a partially-premixed flame highlight the complexity of the stabilization mechanisms for these highly three-dimensional, non-axisymmetric flames that may be subjected to large thermoacoustics. This first investigation into premix/micromix clustered injectors demonstrates the importance of better understanding the impact of flame–flame interaction in multi-element combustion systems with micromixed, or partially-premixed, combustion.

Numerical Investigation of Partially Premixed Flames Under Transcritical Conditions

Understanding the characteristics of partially premixed flames (PPFs) under transcritical conditions is of critical importance for the development of fuel-rich staged rocket engines. While substantial progress has been achieved for transcritical non-premixed flames (NPFs), comparatively little effort has been made to investigate transcritical PPFs. To this end, a series of transcritical counterflow gaseous hydrogen/liquid oxygen (GH2/LOX) PPFs is simulated to investigate the thermodynamic structure of PPF and to examine the effects of molecular diffusion modeling, strain rate, and the equivalence ratio at the fuel-rich side on PPFs in physical space and mixture fraction space, as well as reduced temperature/reduced pressure space. The comparisons between the NPF and PPF demonstrate that the PPF exhibits a bimodal structure in physical space: a premixed reaction zone at the fuel inlet side and a non-premixed reaction zone at the oxidizer side. In mixture fraction space, the C-shaped structure of PPF is observed owing to the differential diffusion of species. It is found that the choice of molecular diffusion model has a significant impact on PPF structure. The presence of a loop at subcritical pressures in a reduced temperature/reduced pressure space is caused by the differential diffusion of species and the formation of [Formula: see text] in the non-premixed reaction zone. Furthermore, the results indicate that the premixed reaction zones in the PPFs are very sensitive to the change in strain rate and/or equivalence ratio of the premixed mixture at the fuel inlet side. For a given equivalence ratio, increasing strain rate can suppress the differential diffusion effect and the C-shaped structure, while it has a negligible impact on the non-premixed reaction and hence on loop formation.

LES of turbulent partially-premixed flames using reaction–diffusion manifold-reduced chemistry with a consistent gradient estimate determined “on the fly”

This paper devises and applies a method for determining consistent, system-adapted reaction–diffusion manifolds (REDIM) for turbulent partially-premixed combustion. The method is an extension of a previous technique which was limited to laminar flames. It adapts a REDIM to the scalar gradients present in a given reacting flow by an iterative procedure, in which gradients from REDIM-reduced simulations are used to create a new and improved REDIM. An application of the method is demonstrated using large eddy simulations (LES) of a turbulent partially-premixed methane/air flame as the “gradient estimate generating” flame simulation. Compared to the previous laminar flame studies, the turbulent flame features less sharp gradient-scalar correlations because of the strong scattering of data. Methods for capturing the scatter in scalar-gradient correlations are applied, allowing us to assess the influence of the scatter on the resulting REDIM. Also, the fact that turbulent flame simulations often involve spatial filtering operations which tend to reduce the magnitude of the gradients is taken into account by comparing the REDIM output to quasi-direct numerical simulation (qDNS) data. It is found that the gradients devised from the filtered simulations are by a factor of 2–3 below those of the more fully resolved qDNS. Nevertheless, the REDIM devised from the LES predicts the states of the qDNS with good accuracy. Overall, observations show that the method can produce realistic reduced models also for systems with complex interactions of chemical reaction, molecular transport and flow, like partially-premixed turbulent flames.

An iterative methodology for REDIM reduced chemistry generation and its validation for partially-premixed combustion

Partially-premixed flames (PPFs) incorporate effects of both premixed and non-premixed types of reaction zones. The modelling of PPFs using manifold-based model reduction methods faces some inherent difficulties due to the underlying assumptions of a-priori identification of the type of combustion system. In this work, the reaction–diffusion manifold (REDIM) model reduction method is applied to study PPFs. The REDIM method requires minimal prior knowledge about the type of combustion system, which makes it a suitable method for studying PPFs. It allows incorporating system-specific diffusion (gradients) terms in a generic way so that the manifold can evolve according to the diffusion related information provided by the combustion system. In this way, a prior identification of the type of combustion system is no longer needed. This work utilises an iterative methodology to generate REDIM chemistry tables so that the reduced manifold can be iteratively converged very close to the detailed manifold according to the gradients of the reduced coordinates provided by the physical combustion system in each iteration step. In addition, a new method is proposed to provide the gradient estimates of the reduced coordinates during the generation of REDIM from the scattered gradient data in REDIM reduced CFD calculations. Laminar triple flames, a special case of PPFs, with two types of mixture fraction gradients are selected as the target cases to assess the presented iterative methodology. REDIM reduced calculations are compared with simulations based on detailed finite-rate kinetics. It is found that in the final iteration steps, temperature and all considered major and minor species mass fraction profiles are very well predicted by the REDIM reduced calculations.

Flame Surface Density and Artificially Thickened Flame Combustion Models Applied to a Turbulent Partially-Premixed Flame

The Sydney Flame provides an excellent framework for systematic analysis of premixed, partially premixed and non-premixed methane/air combustion. It represents (depending on the axial position from the fuel inlet) non-premixed, partially premixed and fully premixed combustion. We simulate the test case FJ200-5GP-Lr75-57, which represents the partially premixed mode. Large-eddy simulations (LES) are conducted using a flame surface density combustion model (FSD) using one-step chemistry and an artificially thickened flame model (ATF) with a global two-step and an analytically reduced multi-step chemistry reaction mechanism. Unity Lewis numbers are assumed (Le=1\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$Le=1$$\\end{document}) at first. The FSD and ATF models are compared using the same computational mesh, numerical scheme and boundary conditions. Both models will be analysed regarding their accuracy and computational efficiency in the regime of partially premixed combustion. A comparison of the results points out the strengths and weaknesses of the FSD models. The FSD model with inclusion of flame stretch effects yields good agreement with mean experimental temperature, CO2 and H2O mass fraction distributions in contrast to the ATF model using the global two-step mechanism, which overestimates downstream temperature, CO2 and H2O mass fractions. The FSD model performs well in all regions, which are dominated first by premixed, then partially premixed and finally non-premixed combustion along the flame. The ATF multi-step chemistry shows good results only in the premixed mode region, while mean temperature, CO2 and mass fractions are overestimated in the non-premixed mode regions at higher mixture fraction values. Including differential diffusion into the transport equations improved the ATF model results in comparison with experiments. A mesh study revealed, that the ATF model performs only after mesh refinement. In particular results are improved in the non-premixed combustion region. In contrast, the FSD model is less resolution sensitive and performs very well for both meshes. An evaluation of the Wasserstein metric provides a quantitative assessment of different ATF model setups on simulation accuracy. Finally, computational times for all simulation setups are compared.

Lift-off behaviors of the partially-premixed jet flame in a supersonic vitiated coflow

Achieving fast and efficient combustion is considered as the primary difficulty in overcoming the high-Mach-number scramjet. A novel injection strategy with coflows has been proposed to improve the combustion efficiency, however, the inherent dynamics that drives the partially-premixed combustion is still not very clear. Numerical simulation is adopted to investigate the supersonic partially-premixed flame formed by the coflows of inner jet and annular vitiated air. Validation of numerical results has been conducted by comparing with the experimental data, and the predicted values show a reasonably good agreement with that in the experiments. Numerical results indicate that the supersonic jet flame is stabilized with a certain of lift-off height, with the dynamics balance of flow transport and flame propagation in the autoignition-dominated flame base. According to the flame index, the supersonic reactive flow fields are divided into three stages, including the no reaction region, premixed flame region and diffusion flame region. On this basis, the influence of equivalence ratio and injecting velocity of inner jet on the lift-off behaviors of jet flame, is explored by a series of contrastive analysis.

Effects of oxygen partial premixing on soot formation in ethylene counterflow flames with oscillating strain rates

The sooting characteristics of counterflow partially-premixed flames subject to monochromatic oscillation of strain rates were investigated. Strain rate oscillations with well controlled frequencies and amplitudes were imposed on a series of ethylene counterflow partially-premixed flames. Flow fields and soot volume fractions were measured non-intrusively in a spatially and temporally resolved manner. Numerical simulations were also performed to support the experimental observations. The results showed that oxygen partial premixing in the ethylene fuel stream notably increased soot production due to the enhanced temperature and oxidative pyrolysis that led to increased formation of benzene precursors. More importantly, despite these enhancing effects on soot loading, we demonstrated for the first time that partial premixing does not alter the sensitivity of soot formation to strain rate in steady counterflow flames. In addition, when subject to oscillating strain rates, the unsteady responses of partially-premixed flames were still seen to be independent of partial premixing. This indicates that our previous conclusion—the sensitivity of soot formation to strain rate in steady counterflow diffusion non-premixed flames determines its response under unsteady condition—still holds for partially-premixed flames. The results could be useful for the development of advanced flamelet model to quantitatively account for unsteady effects on soot formation in practical turbulent flames that frequently encounters partial premixing.

Numerical simulation of stable and unstable ram-mode operation of an axisymmetric ethylene-fueled inlet-isolator-combustor configuration

Large-eddy simulations of stable and unstable ramjet operational modes are presented for an axisymmetric inlet-isolator-combustor configuration experimentally tested in the University of Illinois's ACT-II arc-heated combustion tunnel. A 32 species ethylene oxidation mechanism including nitrous oxide formation reactions is used in the calculations (HyChem FFCM 2.0). Conjugate heat-transfer models based on an assumed penetration depth of the applied heating load are used to account for localized wall heating during the short durations (∼0.2 to 0.3 s) of the parts of the experiments simulated in this work. The results show a marked sensitivity to trace levels of atomic oxygen (∼1% by mass) in the free stream, a consequence of the arc-heating process. Atomic oxygen significantly reduces ignition delay at the relatively low pressures present within the configuration. With 1% atomic oxygen in the free stream, a jet-wake stabilized, partially-premixed flame structure emerges during thermal-throat ramjet operation at an equivalence ratio of 1.24, in accord with available experimental pressure and imaging measurements. Considering the free stream as pure air results in a cavity-wake stabilized, rich premixed flame. Simulations of unstable ram-mode operation leading to inlet unstart at an equivalence ratio of 1.97 also indicate a sensitivity to the free-stream composition. A reduction in atomic oxygen concentration to 0.8% by mass yields good agreement with the experimentally-observed isolator shock-train propagation speed. Both the computational and experimental results indicate that the shock train accelerates before being disgorged from the inlet. This acceleration stems from a rapid increase in the sizes of regions of low speed, sometimes separated flow behind Mach disks that form as the shock train proceeds upstream.

Difference in Thermo-Acoustic Instability Frequency Between Partially and Fully Premixed Flames

The difference in thermo-acoustic instability frequency was analyzed between partially premixed (PP) and fully premixed (FP) flames in a methane-fueled gas turbine combustor. The instability frequencies of both PP and FP flames shifted to high frequencies as the equivalence ratio increased. However, the instability frequencies of two flames were different at some equivalence ratio conditions, despite the same air and fuel flow rates. The convection time was introduced to determine the reason for the difference, and values of two flames were calculated quantitatively using OH-planar laser-induced fluorescence imaging and particle image velocimetry. The PP flames had a longer than the FP flames, and incomplete premixing of fuel and air in PP flames was determined to be the cause of this result. A low-order network model was adopted to confirm that whether the difference in between PP and FP flames can cause different instability frequencies. The network model well-predicted that two flames featured different instability frequencies owing to the difference in despite the same equivalence ratio. In conclusion, the PP flames had longer than FP flames owing to incomplete premixing of fuel and air, and it consequently contributed to the difference in instability frequency.

Experimental study of the effects of input flow characteristics on flame dynamics and oscillating frequencies of a partially-premixed flame in a fixed-geometry Meso-cylindrical reactor

Experimental study of the effects of input flow characteristics on flame dynamics and oscillating frequencies of a partially-premixed flame in a fixed-geometry Meso-cylindrical reactor

Experimental investigation on lift-off, blowout and drop-back in partially premixed LPG open flames in tubular burner

The higher pollutant level in non premixed combustion and safety issues pertaining to premixed combustion can be counteracted by partially-premixed mode of combustion. The partially premixed flames (PPF) exhibit the benefits of both premixed and non premixed flames. PPF enhances complete combustion leading to reduced soot formation and hence lower emission. However, the equivalence ratio plays an important role in the stability of such flames. This paper reports the experimental investigation on the flame characteristics and stability of partially premixed LPG-air flames in tubular burner. The stability curve obtained for the base case without any secondary flow shows that the velocity at lift-off, drop-back and blowout increases with increasing equivalence ratio. In the presence of secondary co-flow air, the lift-off and blow off velocity decreases compared to base case indicating poor stability due to extensive flame stretch leading to aerodynamic quenching. The experimental results show that the velocity of flow at lift off, blow out and drop back are higher in the presence of secondary swirl air than the base case. Co-swirl air increases the stability due to better mixing at the flame base with increased residence time. Flame stability deteriorates with co-flow air as co-flow strains the flame boundary due to flame stretch.

Experimental Research of High-Pressure Methane Pulse Jet and Premixed Ignition Combustion Performance of a Direct Injection Injector

Natural gas (NG) direct injection (DI) technology benefits the engine with high efficiency and clean emissions, and the high-pressure gas fuel injection process causes crucial effects on the combustion. This study presents an optical experimental investigation on the high-pressure methane single-hole direct injection and premixed ignition combustion based on a visualization cuboid constant volume bomb (CVB) test rig. The experimental results show that the methane jet process is divided into two stages. The methane gas jet travels at a faster speed during the unstable stage I than that during the stable stage II. The injection pressure causes more influence on both the jet penetration distance and the jet cone area during stage II. The methane jet premixed flame is a stable flame with a nearly spherical shape, and its equivalent radius linearly increases. The methane jet premixed flame area also increases while the flame stretch rate declines. The methane jet premixed flame velocity rises as both the standing time and equivalent ratio increase. The methane jet premixed flame is a partial premixed flame, and the peak of the methane jet premixed flame occurs at greater equivalence ratio ϕ, i.e., ϕ > 2. As the injection pressure rises, the jet premixed flame equivalent radius increases, and the flame velocity linearly increases. The higher the methane injection pressure, the faster the jet premixed flame velocity.

Sooting characteristics of partially-premixed flames of ethanol and ethylene mixtures: Unravelling the opposing effects of ethanol addition on soot formation in non-premixed and premixed flames

Oxygenated biofuels such as bioethanol and biodiesel are widely used as clean fuel additives in practical combustion devices to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases and soot particles. Literature data showed that the effects of the oxygenates may differ under different combustion conditions. In particular, ethanol addition was seen to monotonically decrease soot formation in ethylene premixed flames. However, doping a small amount of ethanol would enhance soot formation in ethylene non-premixed flames. Although this dependence of the effects of ethanol doping on flame configuration has been observed experimentally, detailed kinetic explanation is yet to be presented. In this work, we performed a combined experimental and numerical study to explore the underlying mechanisms responsible for the reversal of the effects of ethanol addition on soot formation in partially premixed flames with increasingly higher level of partial premixing ratio. We showed experimentally that the soot synergistic effect of ethylene and ethanol as observed in non-premixed flames became weaker and eventually disappeared with the increase of the premixing ratio. These new findings suggest the important role of oxygen-related reactions in explaining the opposing effect of ethanol addition in non-premixed and premixed flames. Numerical simulations show that the presence of oxygen in partially premixed flames (PPF) enhance the formation of C1 species from ethylene; as a result, ethylene PPF exhibit low sensitivity to the additional C1 species produced from ethanol decomposition, which is the main reason for ethanol’s soot enhancing effect in non-premixed flames of ethylene/ethanol mixtures. The opposing effect of ethanol addition on soot formation in non-premixed and premixed flames has finally been elucidated with kinetic information provided by our results on partially premixed flames.

REDIM-PFDF modelling of turbulent partially-premixed flame with inhomogeneous inlets using top-hat function for multi-stream mixing problem

Present study focuses on numerical investigation of two important partially-premixed inhomogeneous types of flames using REDIM-PFDF sub-grid scale combustion model. REDIM-PFDF model is based on the reaction-diffusion manifold (REDIM) technique and presumed filtered density function (PFDF) method. The detailed chemical kinetics is reduced into a two-dimensional chemistry table which is using the mass fractions of CO2 (YCO2) and N2 (YN2) as the reduced coordinates. The shapes of the Filtered Density Function (FDF) for YCO2 and YN2 are presumed to be clipped Gaussian and top-hat, respectively. We find that the top-hat function, in context of LES, is a suitable option to deal with multi-stream mixing problem. The comparison between LES and experimental data shows that the mixture fraction and mass fractions of several species are in a good agreement with the experimental data. The characteristics of two flames are also analyzed by comparing their OH mass fractions and CO2 production rates.

Ignition and flame stabilization characteristics in an ethylene-fueled scramjet combustor

Successful ignition process is the prerequisite for achieving stable combustion in a scramjet combustor coupled with a cavity. A single pulse laser is adopted to ignite the fuel/air mixture that is generated by a sonic ethylene jet injection into heated Mach 2.92 crossflows. In order to reveal the complicated combustion regime, large eddy simulations are performed to reproduce the unsteady reactive process observed in the experiments, from an initial ignition kernel to the cavity-stabilized flame. From qualitative comparisons, the predicted results show reasonably good agreement with experimental observations. After ignition, the flow dynamics drive the flame kernel to the leading edge of the cavity. Herein, a flame base is established, and provides hot intermediate products and high temperature to continually ignite the fresh combustible mixture downstream. Finally, a partially-premixed flame is stabilized in the cavity. Due to a shorter flow residence time, the intensity of chemical reactions becomes weak in the downstream region of cavity. In comparison with no-reactive flows, the chemical heat released during the reactions induces high temperature, and the jet wakes penetrate a deep height into the mainstream. A thorough understanding of unsteady flame regime is propitious to instruct the design and optimization of combustor.

Direct numerical simulation of triple flames by using 2-D reaction-diffusion manifold tabulation method

The characteristics of partially-premixed flames is investigated by simulating a series of triple flames with different variations of chemical equivalent ratio. A 2-D reaction-diffusion manifold chemistry tabulation method is employed in the simulation and the results are compared with the CH4-air 19-step chemical reaction mechanism. The performance of these two mechanisms is then assessed by using direct numerical simulations coupled with GRI3.0 detailed mechanism. It is shown that both 2-D reaction-diffusion manifold table and 19-step simplified mechanism can describe the temperature and main products accurately, however, for some minor intermediary products, predictions from 2-D reaction-diffusion manifold table is observed to be better than 19-step simplified mechanism. Com-pared with the 19-step mechanism, 2-D reaction-diffusion manifold table only needs to solve only the transport equations for CO2 and N2 species, which greatly simplifies the solution process of chemical reaction and provides a reliable solution for the numerical simulation of turbulence with higher accuracy. This work indicates that as a relatively advanced kinetic simplified method, the reaction-diffusion manifold tabulation method can reduce the computational cost and at the same time retain the accuracy effectively.

REDIM-PFDF Sub-grid Scale Combustion Modeling for Turbulent Partially-premixed Flame: Assessment of Combustion Modes

ABSTRACT The focus of the present study is to evaluate the capability of reaction-diffusion manifold (REDIM) technique combined with presumed filtered density function (PFDF) method to calculate the important characteristics of turbulent partially-premixed flame with near-homogeneous inlets and inhomogeneous inlets. The REDIM approach reduces detailed chemical kinetics into two-dimensional chemistry table, where mass fractions of CO2 and N2 are used as reduced coordinates. The fluctuation of the scalars within the LES filter volume is modeled by the PFDF method. Higher shear generated turbulent intensity at the mixing layer of the fuel and air streams provides the near-homogeneous inlet conditions. The radial statistics analysis of the mixture fraction, temperature and species mass faction, and their comparison with the experimental data show the good performance of the REDIM-PFDF model. Scatter plots show the better agreement for the inhomogeneous case. The near-homogeneous case exhibits little discrepancy with the measured distribution because of the limited ability of the present model to capture local extinction effects. Flame index parameter identifies the multiple combustion modes present at different locations. This parameter shows the presence of premixed and diffusion dominated types of combustion near the main jet exit plane in the inhomogeneous and near-homogeneous cases, respectively.

Mixing Tube Length Effect on the Stability of Confined Swirling Partially Premixed Methane Flames off a Concentric Flow Conical Nozzle Burner

ABSTRACT The effect of mixing tube length (partial premixing level) on the amplitude of coherent structures and acoustics, and stability of partially premixed flames (PPFs) of methane off a concentric flow conical nozzle (CFCN) swirl burner is experimentally investigated. The flowfield inside the quartz confinement is documented using particle image velocimetry (PIV), and coherent structures are captured using proper orthogonal decomposition (POD) technique. Acoustics measurements are performed using Bruel & Kjaer type 4189 microphone. Additionally, high-speed imaging and quantitative light sheet (QLS) techniques are used to qualitatively investigate the flow mixing characteristics. The results reveal that increasing partial premixing level significantly enhances flame stability. Compared to traditional dump burner/combustor, the present burner configuration promotes flame divergence with no outer recirculation zone (ORZ) and larger homogeneous and isotropic turbulent zone. More importantly, the results show that, in contrast to the traditional dump combustor, the use of a swirl in a CFCN burner makes it possible to sustain stable flame under ultra-lean conditions.