ABSTRACT The combustion dynamics of methane-oxygen inverse diffusion flames stabilized over a swirl coaxial injector are investigated in detail. Mapping of different regimes of flame dynamics was carried out by classifying the flame into stable flames, oscillating flames, and unstable flames. The dominant frequency of the acoustics associated with different flame characteristics was determined from a free-field microphone measurement of combustion noise, and the respective flame morphology was studied by high-speed imaging of OH* chemiluminescence. Experiments were conducted for different oxidizer jet Reynolds numbers corresponding to each of the three different fuel jet Reynolds numbers. For all three power levels, flame transition from stable to unstable was observed as the oxidizer Reynolds number and equivalence ratio increased from fuel-rich to oxidizer-rich conditions. Strong acoustic-combustion heat release rate coupling was observed in the unstable flames. Modal decomposition techniques were employed to study the spatio-temporal evolution of the flame. The energetic coherent modes corresponding to the frequency of oscillation reveal two different modes of flame oscillation: longitudinal and transverse. All three fuel Reynolds numbers under investigation showed a predominant longitudinal mode of oscillation, while only the highest fuel flow conditions, corresponding to a fuel jet Reynolds number of 765 showed a transverse mode flame oscillation, as the oxidizer Reynolds number increased above 8000.
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