In order to assess the stability of gas turbine combustors measured flame transfer functions are frequently used in thermoacoustic network models. Although many combustion systems operate at high pressure, the measurement of flame transfer functions was essentially limited to atmospheric conditions in the past. With the test rig employed in the study presented in the paper transfer function measurements were made for a wide range of combustor pressures. The results show similarities of the amplitude response in the entire pressure range investigated. However, the increase of the pressure leads to a considerable amplitude gain at higher frequencies. In the low frequency regime the phase is also independent of pressure, whereas above this region the pressure increase results in a considerably smaller phase lag. These observations are particularly important when evaluating Rayleigh’s criterion: Interestingly, the choice of the operating pressure can render a system stable or unstable, so that the common procedure of applying flame transfer functions measured at ambient pressure for the high pressure engine case may not always be appropriate. The detailed analysis of high speed camera images, which were recorded to get locally resolved information on the flame response reveal different regions of activity within the flame that change in strength, size and location with changing operating conditions. The observed transfer function phase behavior is explained by the interaction of those regions and it is shown that the region of highest dynamic activity dominates the phase.
The development of measurement techniques, which enable temporal and spatial highly resolved density investigations even in harsh environments, is essential. Rayleigh scattering is a noninvasive optical measurement technique permitting such investigations. A Rayleigh-scattering measurement system is set up, providing a new insight into fluid mechanical processes in turbomachines. In this paper, Rayleigh scattering is used for the detection of density oscillations in the optical accessible convergent-divergent outlet nozzle of a small scale combustion test rig at various power consumptions and equivalence ratios. Until now, this part of the combustion chamber is sparsely investigated due to the challenging measurement conditions. The temporal density oscillation inside the nozzle can be shown up to 4 kHz as well as its spatial distribution. Systematic errors of the setup are investigated. Spectra of pressure and density oscillations are compared. Measurements with nonreacting air flow are conducted to study flow induced density fluctuations. Entropy noise related correlations between density and pressure fluctuations are found. Therewith, the builtup Rayleigh-scattering system enables investigations of the presumed region of indirect noise generation.
Thermo-acoustic investigations require reliable measurement techniques in hot environments for pressure, density fluctuations with a high dynamic range and acoustic particle velocity. This paper presents recent developments of optical measurement techniques in combustion diagnostics. A fibre-optic microphone based on the interferometric detection of membrane deflections was designed to measure acoustic pressure oscillations. Due to the heat resistant design, the sensor has an upper temperature limitation of approximately 970 K. Rayleigh-Scattering measurements, using the density dependent intensity of scattered light were performed in an unconfined flame with approximately 1600 K to study amplitude and phase distribution of the flame pulsation. Acoustic particle velocity can be determined applying acoustic PIV (particle image velocimetry) technique. This paper shows a way to measure simultaneously the acoustic particle velocity and the locally resolved mean flow velocity of a turbulent flow. Together these non-invasive techniques are applicable to study thermo-acoustic processes and sound generation in combustion chambers or turbines.
A high-temperature resistant fiber-optical microphone (FOM) was developed and successfully applied in a combustion chamber (∼1.2 × 10 5 Pa, ∼1400 K gas temperature) with thermo-acoustic oscillations resulting in a sound pressure level of 154 dB at the dominant frequency. The core of the optical set-up used for the FOM is a Fabry-Perot interferometer.To create an acoustical sensor based on this type of interferometer, a new method of generation and postprocessing of the interference signal was developed. The simple replaceability of the used membrane material allows the adaptation of the sensor sensitivity to the projected field of application.
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