Computational investigation of combustion instabilities in an air heater with a new computational model

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-26
Author(s):  
L. Yuan ◽  
C. Shen

Abstract On the basis of air heater characteristics, a new computational model was developed in this paper, which was aimed at investigating acoustics and instabilities in air heaters. This model included the effects of mean flow, viscosity, entropy waves, non-linear acoustics and realistic boundary conditions. In addition, it was practical for air heaters with hundreds of injectors, complex configurations and geometries. Analytical solutions of acoustics in a closed rectangular cavity were used to verify and validate the computational model. It was shown that the predicted critical parameters of air heater agreed well with the experimental data or design values. This model predicted the self-excited spinning tangential modes without any preliminary assumptions about them. Traditional combustion response function assumes that combustion mainly takes place in a so-called rapid combustion zone, and this zone is usually modelled as a disc in the combustor near the injection head. However, in practice, the flame has a spatial distribution. This paper described the effect of flame spatial distribution on predictions of oscillation frequency and mode. It was found that frequency and mode shape of oscillations closely depended on the length of the heat release zone. Comparison of different heat release zones indicated that the increment of heat release length exhibited an increased tendency toward lower-order longitudinal modes, when the heat release zone was located near the faceplate where it was the pressure antinode of the longitudinal mode. Modulation of heat release length might cause bifurcations between standing and turning modes. A noticeable tendency was toward higher-order standing tangential mode with increasing heat release length. Finally, theoretical analysis of the modal behaviour, i.e. standing or spinning waves, was performed.


2003 ◽  
Vol 125 (3) ◽  
pp. 677-685 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. Pankiewitz ◽  
T. Sattelmayer

A novel method for the simulation of combustion instabilities in annular combustors is presented. It is based on the idea to solve the equations governing the acoustics in the time domain and couple them to a model for the heat release in the flames. The linear wave equation describing the temporal and spatial evolution of the pressure fluctuations is implemented in a finite element code. Providing high flexibility, this code in principle allows both the computational domain to be of arbitrary shape and the mean flow to be included. This yields applicability to realistic technical combustors. The fluctuating heat release acting as a volume source appears as a source term in the equation to be solved. Employing a time-lag model, the heat release rate at each individual burner is related to the velocity in the corresponding burner at an earlier time. As saturation also is considered, a nonlinearity is introduced into the system. Starting the simulation from a random initial perturbation with suitable values for the parameters of the heat release model, a self-excited instability is induced, leading to a finite-amplitude limit cycle oscillation. The feasibility of the approach is demonstrated with three-dimensional simulations of a simple model annular combustor. The effect of the model parameters and of axial mean flow on the stability and the shape of the excited modes is shown.



Author(s):  
Christian Pankiewitz ◽  
Thomas Sattelmayer

A novel method for the simulation of combustion instabilities in annular combustors is presented. It is based on the idea to solve the equations governing the acoustics in the time domain and couple them to a model for the heat release in the flames. The linear wave equation describing the temporal and spatial evolution of the pressure fluctuations is implemented in a finite element code. Providing high flexibility, this code in principle allows both the computational domain to be of arbitrary shape and the mean flow to be included. This yields applicability to realistic technical combustors. The fluctuating heat release acting as a volume source appears as a source term in the equation to be solved. Employing a time-lag model, the heat release rate at each individual burner is related to the velocity in the corresponding burner at an earlier time. As saturation also is considered, a non-linearity is introduced into the system. Starting the simulation from a random initial perturbation with suitable values for the parameters of the heat release model, a self-excited instability is induced, leading to a finite-amplitude limit cycle oscillation. The feasiblity of the approach is demonstrated with 3D-simulations of a simple model annular combustor. The effect of the model parameters and of axial mean flow on the stability and the shape of the excited modes is shown.



2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 (6) ◽  
Author(s):  
Anson Hook ◽  
Gustavo Marques-Tavares ◽  
Clayton Ristow

Abstract We present the supernova constraints on an axion-photon-dark photon coupling, which can be the leading coupling to dark sector models and can also lead to dramatic changes to axion cosmology. We show that the supernova bound on this coupling has two unusual features. One occurs because the scattering that leads to the trapping regime converts axions and dark photons into each other. Thus, if one of the two new particles is sufficiently massive, both production and scattering become suppressed and the bounds from bulk emission and trapped (area) emission both weaken exponentially and do not intersection The other unusual feature occurs because for light dark photons, longitudinal modes couple more weakly than transverse modes do. Since the longitudinal mode is more weakly coupled, it can still cause excessive cooling even if the transverse mode is trapped. Thus, the supernova constraints for massive dark photons look like two independent supernova bounds super-imposed on top of each other.



2021 ◽  
pp. 1-52
Author(s):  
Gregory Tierney ◽  
Walter A. Robinson ◽  
Gary Lackmann ◽  
Rebecca Miller

AbstractHigh-impact events such as heat waves and droughts are often associated with persistent positive geopotential height anomalies (PAs). Understanding how PA activity will change in a future warmer climate is therefore fundamental to projecting associated changes in weather and climate extremes. This is a complex problem because the dynamics of PAs and their associated blocking activity are still poorly understood. Furthermore, climate-change influences on PA activity may be geographically dependent and encompass competing influences. To expose the salient impacts of climate change, we use an oceanic channel configuration of the Weather Research and Forecasting model (WRF) in a bivariate experiment focused on changes in environmental temperature, moisture, and baroclinicity. The 500-hPa wind speed and flow variability are found to increase with increasing temperature and baroclinicity, driven by increases in latent heat release and a stronger virtual temperature gradient. Changes to 500-hPa sinuosity are negligible. PAs are objectively identified at the 500-hPa level using an anomaly threshold method. When using a fixed threshold, PA trends indicate increased activity and strength with warming, but decreased activity and strength with Arctic amplification. Use of a climate-relative threshold hides these trends and highlights the importance of accurate characterization of the mean flow. Changes in PA activity mirror corresponding changes in 500-hPa flow variability and are found to be attributable to changes in three distinct dynamical mechanisms: baroclinic wave activity, virtual temperature effects, and latent heat release.



2005 ◽  
Vol 16 (12) ◽  
pp. 1831-1840 ◽  
Author(s):  
AQUINO L. ESPÍNDOLA ◽  
T. J. P. PENNA ◽  
JAYLSON J. SILVEIRA

The rural-urban migration phenomenon is analyzed by using an agent-based computational model. Agents are placed on lattices which dimensions varying from d =2 up to d =7. The localization of the agents in the lattice defines that their social neighborhood (rural or urban) is not related to their spatial distribution. The effect of the dimension of lattice is studied by analyzing the variation of the main parameters that characterizes the migratory process. The dynamics displays strong effects even for around one million of sites, in higher dimensions (d =6, 7).



Author(s):  
Mael Harnieh ◽  
Nicolas Odier ◽  
Jérôme Dombard ◽  
Florent Duchaine ◽  
Laurent Gicquel

Abstract The use of numerical simulations to design and optimize turbine vane cooling requires precise prediction of the fluid mechanics and film cooling effectiveness. This results in the need to numerically identify and assess the various origins of the losses taking place in such systems and if possible in engine representative conditions. Large-Eddy Simulation (LES) has shown recently its ability to predict turbomachinery flows in well mastered academic cases such as compressor or turbine cascades. When it comes to industrial representative configurations, the geometrical complexities, high Reynolds and Mach numbers as well as boundary condition setup lead to an important increase of CPU cost of the simulations. To evaluate the capacity of LES to predict film cooling effectiveness as well as to investigate the loss generation mechanisms in a turbine vane in engine representative conditions, a wall-modeled LES of the FACTOR film-cooled nozzle is performed. After the comparison of integrated values to validate the operating point of the vanes, the mean flow structure is investigated. In the coolant film, a strong turbulent mixing process between coolant and hot flows is observed. As a result, the spatial distribution of time-averaged vane surface temperature is highly heterogeneous. Comparisons with the experiment show that the LES prediction fairly reproduces the spatial distribution of the adiabatic film effectiveness. The loss generation in the configuration is then investigated. To do so, two methodologies, i.e, performing balance of total pressure in the vanes wakes as mainly used in the literature and Second Law Analysis (SLA) are evaluated. Balance of total pressure without the contribution of thermal effects only highlights the losses generated by the wakes and secondary flows. To overcome this limitation, SLA is adopted by investigating loss maps. Thanks to this approach, mixing losses are shown to dominate in the coolant film while aerodynamic losses dominate in the coolant pipe region.



2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Seung-Hwan Do ◽  
Hao Zhang ◽  
Travis J. Williams ◽  
Tao Hong ◽  
V. Ovidiu Garlea ◽  
...  

AbstractAn ongoing challenge in the study of quantum materials, is to reveal and explain collective quantum effects in spin systems where interactions between different modes types are important. Here we approach this problem through a combined experimental and theoretical study of interacting transverse and longitudinal modes in an easy-plane quantum magnet near a continuous quantum phase transition. Our inelastic neutron scattering measurements of Ba2FeSi2O7 reveal the emergence, decay, and renormalization of a longitudinal mode throughout the Brillouin zone. The decay of the longitudinal mode is particularly pronounced at the zone center. To account for the many-body effects of the interacting low-energy modes in anisotropic magnets, we generalize the standard spin-wave theory. The measured mode decay and renormalization is reproduced by including all one-loop corrections. The theoretical framework developed here is broadly applicable to quantum magnets with more than one type of low energy mode.



2005 ◽  
Vol 127 (3) ◽  
pp. 492-496 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. Giezendanner ◽  
P. Weigand ◽  
X. R. Duan ◽  
W. Meier ◽  
U. Meier ◽  
...  

The driving mechanism of pulsations in gas turbine combustors depends on a complex interaction between flow field, chemistry, heat release, and acoustics. Experimental data on all these factors are therefore required to obtain insight into the coupling mechanisms during a pulsation period. In order to develop a comprehensive experimental database to support a phenomenological understanding and to provide validation data for numerical simulation, a standard burner for optical investigations was established that exhibits strong self-excited oscillations. The burner was a swirl-stabilized nonpremixed model combustor designed for gas turbine applications and operated using methane as fuel at atmospheric pressure. It was mounted in a combustion chamber, which provides almost unobstructed optical access. The periodic combustion instabilities were studied by a variety of phase-resolved laser-based diagnostic techniques, locked to the frequency of the dominant pressure oscillation. Measurement techniques used were LDV for velocity measurements, planar laser-induced fluorescence for imaging of CH and OH radicals, and laser Raman scattering for the determination of the major species concentrations, temperature, and mixture fraction. The phase-resolved measurements revealed significant variations of all measured quantities in the vicinity of the nozzle exit, which trailed off quickly with increasing distance. A strong correlation of the heat release rate and axial velocity at the nozzle was observed, while the mean mixture fraction as well as the temperature in the periphery of the flame is phase shifted with respect to axial velocity oscillations. A qualitative interpretation of the experimental observations is given, which will help to form a better understanding of the interaction between flow field, mixing, heat release, and temperature in pulsating reacting flows, particularly when accompanied by corresponding CFD simulations that are currently underway.



Author(s):  
Dieter Bohn ◽  
Nils Ohlendorf ◽  
Frank Weidner ◽  
James F. Willie

Lean premixed flames applied in modern gas turbines leads to reduce NOx emissions, but at the same time they are more susceptible to combustion instabilities than diffusion flames. These oscillations cause pressure fluctuations with high amplitudes and unacceptable noise as well as the risk of component or even engine failure. They can lead to pockets of fuel being formed in the mixing chamber and to bad mixing, which leads to increase in emissions. This paper reports the successful decoupling of the pressure and heat release inside the combustion chamber of a matrix burner using two actuation techniques. This led to the successful attenuation of the dominant instability modes occurring inside the combustor of the matrix burner. In the first case, acoustic forcing was used to decouple the pressure and the heat release inside the combustor. This was achieved by using a loudspeaker to modulate the primary air mass flow. This was followed by using acoustic forcing in CFD to decouple the pressure and heat release inside the combustor. For the action of the loudspeaker, sinusoidal forcing was used to mimic the modulation action of the diaphragm of the loudspeaker. In the second case, a fast gaseous “on-off” injector was used to modulate the primary fuel mass flow. After this, pilot fuel modulation was used to stabilize the flame. The control law governing the primary and pilot fuel modulation is discussed in details. The effect of open loop control on NOx emissions in the burner is also reported and discussed.



Author(s):  
Steve J. Brookes ◽  
R. Stewart Cant ◽  
Iain D. J. Dupere ◽  
Ann P. Dowling

It is well known that lean premixed combustion systems potentially offer better emissions performance than conventional non-premixed designs. However, premixed combustion systems are more susceptible to combustion instabilities than non-premixed systems. Combustion instabilities (large-scale oscillations in heat release and pressure) have a deleterious effect on equipment, and also tend to decrease combustion efficiency. Designing out combustion instabilities is a difficult process and, particularly if many large-scale experiments are required, also very costly. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) is now an established design tool in many areas of gas turbine design. However, its accuracy in the prediction of combustion instabilities is not yet proven. Unsteady heat release will generally be coupled to unsteady flow conditions within the combustor. In principle, computational fluid dynamics should be capable of modelling this coupled process. The present work assesses the ability of CFD to model self-excited combustion instabilities occurring within a model combustor. The accuracy of CFD in predicting both the onset and the nature of the instability is reported.



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