Reduced order modeling and analysis of combustion instabilities.

摘要

The coupling between unsteady heat release and pressure fluctuations in a combustor leads to the complex phenomenon of combustion instability. Combustion instability can lead to enormous pressure fluctuations and high rates of combustor heat transfer which play a very important role in determining the life and performance of engine. Although high fidelity simulations are starting to yield detailed understanding of the underlying physics of combustion instability, the enormous computing power required restricts their application to a few runs and fairly simple geometries. To overcome this, low order models are being employed for prediction and analysis. Since low order models cannot account for the coupling between heat release and pressure fluctuations, lower-order combustion response models are required. One such attempt is made through the work presented here using a commercial software COMSOL.;The linearized Euler Equations with combustion response models were solved in the frequency domain implementing Arnoldi algorithm using 3D Finite Element solver COMSOL. This work is part of a larger effort to investigate a low order, computationally inexpensive and accurate solver which accounts for mean flow effects, complex boundary conditions and combustion response. This tool was tested against a number of cases presenting longitudinal instabilities. Further, combustion instabilities in transverse instability chamber were studied and are compared with experiments. Both sets of results are in good agreement with experiment. In addition, the effect of nozzle length on the mode shapes in transverse instability chamber was studied and presented.