NUMERICAL SIMULATION OF SELF-EXCITED THERMOACOUSTIC INSTABILITIES IN A RIJKE TUBE (original) (raw)

Thermoacoustic instabilities in a Rijke tube with heating and cooling elements

2017

Thermoacoustic instabilities are investigated in a Rijke tube with both heating and cooling elements. The effects of the time delays of the elements, magnitudes of the temperature jumps, and location and compactness of the cooling element are investigated. The results show that for small temperature jumps, the system behaves periodically with changing source time delay. However, for larger temperature jumps corresponding to realistic combustion systems, various stable and unstable situations can occur, which simultaneously depend on the source and sink time delays. This dependence in some configurations is to the extent that the system is predicted unstable or stable, depending on whether or not the heat exchanger is included. In addition, the location or compactness of the heat sink has opposing effects depending on the source time delay. This investigation shows that a correct prediction of the system stability requires taking into account the coupled effects of the heat source an...

Non-normal and nonlinear dynamics of thermoacoustic instability in a horizontal Rijke tube

The paper focusses on the non-normal and nonlinear effects of thermoacoustic interaction in a horizontal electrically heated Rijke tube. The analysis starts with the governing equations for the fluid flow. The governing equations become stiff as the Mach number of the steady flow and the thickness of the heat source (compared to the acoustic wavelength) are small. Therefore asymptotic analysis is performed in the limit of small Mach number and compact heat source to eliminate the above stiffness problem. Two systems of governing equations are obtained: one for the acoustic field and the other for the unsteady flow field in the hydrodynamic zone around the heater. A theoretical framework is developed to understand the non-normal nature of the thermoacoustic interaction in the Rijke tube. The role of non-normality in the subcritical transition to instability regime is explored.

Experimental Investigation of Non-Normality of Thermoacoustic Interaction in an Electrically Heated Rijke Tube

International Journal of Spray and Combustion Dynamics, 2015

An experimental investigation of the non-normal nature of thermoacoustic interactions in an electrically heated horizontal Rijke tube is performed. Since non-normality and the associated transient growth are linear phenomena, the experiments have to be confined to the linear regime. The bifurcation diagram for the subcritical Hopf bifurcation into a limit cycle behavior has been determined, after which the amplitude levels, for which the system acts linearly, have been identified for different power inputs to the heater. There are two main objectives for this experimental investigation. The first one deals with the extraction of the linear eigenmodes associated with the acoustic pressure from experimental data. This is accomplished by the Dynamic Mode Decomposition (DMD) technique applied in the linear regime. The non-orthogonality between the eigenmodes is determined for various values of heater power. The second objective is to identify evidence of transient perturbation growth in...

Experiments on heat content inside a Rijke tube with suppression of thermo-acoustics instability

International Journal of Spray and Combustion Dynamics, 2016

The present work describes the occurrence of thermo-acoustic instability inside a horizontal Rijke tube and its suppression using an open loop active control technique. The Rijke tube is provided with a co-axial pre-mixed gas burner as the source of heat, which could be placed at any desired position. Radial injection of air (less than 3% of the total mass flow) through micro-jets into the flame is used as a control technique to suppress the thermo-acoustic instability. The rise in heat content inside the Rijke tube, estimated from the temperature mapping, clearly shows reduction in the heat loss as a result of complete suppression of the thermo-acoustic instability. However, the stability achieved passively by means of a slight shift in the burner position does not result in any change in the heat content. There is a visible change in the appearance of the burner flame when the above two methods are used to suppress the thermo-acoustic instability. The flame is seen to significantly shrink in length and spread radially when the control technique was applied. The flame dynamics is believed to determine the heat loss and hence the heat content inside the Rijke tube.

Weakly nonlinear analysis of thermoacoustic bifurcations in the Rijke tube

In this study we present a theoretical weakly nonlinear framework for the prediction of thermoacoustic oscillations close to Hopf bifurcations. We demonstrate the method for a thermoacoustic network that describes the dynamics of an electrically heated Rijke tube. We solve the weakly nonlinear equations order by order, discuss their contribution on the overall dynamics and show how solvability conditions at odd orders give rise to Stuart–Landau equations. These equations, combined together, describe the nonlinear dynamical evolution of the oscillations' amplitude and their frequency. Because we retain the contribution of several acoustic modes in the thermoacoustic system, the use of adjoint methods is required to derive the Landau coefficients. The analysis is performed up to fifth order and compared with time domain simulations, showing good agreement. The theoretical framework presented here can be used to reduce the cost of investigating oscillations and subcritical phenomena close to Hopf bifurcations in numerical simulations and experiments and can be readily extended to consider, e.g. the weakly nonlinear interaction of two unstable thermoacoustic modes.

Bifurcation analysis of thermoacoustic instability in a horizontal Rijke tube

2010

A bifurcation analysis of the dynamical behavior of a horizontal Rijke tube model is performed in this paper. The method of numerical continuation is used to obtain the bifurcation plots, including the amplitude of the unstable limit cycles. Bifurcation plots for the variation of nondimensional heater power, damping coefficient and the heater location are obtained for different values of time lag in the system. Subcritical bifurcation was observed for variation of parameters and regions of global stability, global instability and bistability are characterized. Linear and nonlinear stability boundaries are obtained for the simultaneous variation of two parameters of the system. The validity of the small time lag assumption in the calculation of linear stability boundary has been shown to fail at typical values of time lag of system. Accurate calculation of the linear stability boundary in systems with explicit time delay models, must therefore, not assume a small time lag assumption. Interesting dynamical behavior such as co-existing multiple attractors, quasiperiodic behavior and period doubling route to chaos have been observed in the analysis of the model. Comparison of the linear stability boundaries and bifurcation behavior from this reduced order model are shown to display trends similar to experimental data. Prof. Wolfgang Polifke served as the sole independent editor for this paper.

Boundary Feedback Control of Unstable thermoacoustic Oscillations in the Rijke Tube

IFAC-PapersOnLine, 2016

The problem of boundary stabilization of thermoacoustic oscillations is investigated. The Rijke tube is used as prototype system to study such phenomena. We consider that this system is modelled as a 2 × 2 linear first-order hyperbolic system that behaves like a wave equation with the control variable at one boundary condition. Our control approach is based on employing characteristic coordinates to convert the system into a system of two delay elements. Analysing the periodicity of the solution of these equations a discrete transfer function is obtained. This enable us to employ a discrete time domain control design to guarantee the exponential stability of the closed-loop system. The performance of the controller is evaluated through simulation results.

A two-way coupling for modeling thermoacoustic instabilities in a flat flame Rijke tube

Proceedings of The Combustion Institute, 2009

Thermoacoustic instabilities are a serious problem for lean premixed combustion systems. Due to different time and length scales associated with the flow field, combustion, and acoustics, numerical computations of thermoacoustic phenomena are conceptually challenging. This work presents a coupled method for the simulation of thermoacoustic instabilities in low Mach number reacting flows. The acoustics are represented by a reduced order model that can be obtained from network techniques or finite element computations. A detailed chemistry finite-difference zero Mach number solver is used for the small scale flame dynamics. Under the assumption that the pressure is continuous across the flame, the acoustic model can be reduced to a time-domain relation mapping the velocity perturbation downstream of the flame to that upstream. Closure is obtained by the flame code, which delivers the jump in velocity across the combustion zone. The method is applied to an experimental laminar premixed burner-stabilized flat flame Rijke tube, that exhibits strong thermoacoustic oscillations associated with the 5k=4 mode of the geometrical set-up. In addition to the fundamental oscillation, a significant subharmonic response of the flame is observed. Results from the coupled simulation are compared to the experimental data. Good qualitative and quantitative agreement is found.

Thermoacoustic instability – a dynamical system and time domain analysis

Journal of Fluid Mechanics, 2014

This study focuses on the Rijke tube problem, which includes features relevant to the modelling of thermoacoustic coupling in reactive flows: a compact acoustic source, an empirical model for the heat source and nonlinearities. This thermoacoustic system features both linear and nonlinear flow regimes with complex dynamical behaviour. In order to synthesize accurate time series, we tackle this problem from a numerical point of view, and start by proposing a dedicated solver designed for dealing with the underlying stiffness – in particular, the retarded time and the discontinuity at the location of the heat source. Stability analysis is performed on the limit of low-amplitude disturbances by using the projection method proposed by Jarlebring (PhD thesis, Technische Universität Braunschweig, 2008), which alleviates the problems arising from linearization with respect to the retarded time. The results are then compared with the analytical solution of the undamped system and with the r...

Prediction of thermoacoustic instability in Rijke tube using CFD-CAA numerical method

Journal of Mechanical Science and Technology, 2011

The coupling between the emitted energy and the acoustic energy in a thermal system, e.g. combustor, may result in system instability accompanying severe vibration. In this study, the limit curve for thermo-acoustic instability is numerically obtained by using the CFD-CAA combined method. The response function for pulsating release of heat in the Rijke tube and the distribution of mean density in the tube are computed accurately by the CFD analysis and used as inputs to CAA predictions. To verify the accuracy of the prediction method, the thermo-acoustics inside the horizontal, one meter long Rijke tube of square cross-section, which has the heating part at the location of one quarter length, is simulated. The predicted instability curve agrees well with the experimental one except the low flowrate region of Re Do < 1.