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Original Articles

Generalization of Turbulent Swirl Flame Transfer Functions in Gas Turbine Combustors

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Pages 999-1015 | Received 21 Sep 2012, Accepted 21 Nov 2012, Published online: 26 Jun 2013
 

Abstract

Experimental investigations of the forced response of swirl-stabilized turbulent flames to upstream flow disturbances were performed in an industrial scale gas turbine combustor operating with natural gas fuel and CO2/air. We measured flame transfer functions (FTFs) for a wide range of forcing frequency over a broad range of operating conditions with 50–120 kW thermal power. A sensitivity analysis was then performed in order to identify the key dimensionless parameters controlling the forced swirl flame dynamics. Two different dimensionless parameters, S t 1 = (fδ sw )/U and S t 2 = (f L f )/U, are used as dimensionless frequencies, while the dependence of the FTF gain on the turbulent flame speed is taken into account using a dimensionless flame length, ξ = L f /D c . The implementation of the nondimensionalization strategy using several time and length scales reveals that all FTFs are well characterized by either S t 1 or S t 2, but the best result is obtained from a combination of S t 1 and S t 2, which accounts for the interference mechanisms of vortical and acoustic disturbances in the system. As a consequence, the occurrence of local minima and local maxima, a clear manifestation of destructive and constructive interferences of acoustically forced swirl-stabilized flames, is well captured by the dimensionless numbers. This methodology is then applied to extensive FTF data measured from a different gas turbine combustor. A comparison of the FTFs for the two different gas turbine combustion systems provides insight into generalized transfer function behaviors in the dimensionless domain. This study focuses on velocity-coupled combustion instability, and these generalizations may not extend to situations where other coupling mechanisms dominate.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

This work was performed in support of the National Energy Technology Laboratory's ongoing research on gas turbine combustion instability under RUA contract 4000.2.600.232.002.000.

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