Impedance Tuning of a Premixed Combustor Using Active Control

In early design phases new burner concepts are mostly tested in single or multi burner test rigs. These test rigs generally exhibit a different acoustic behavior than the full scale engine. The acoustic behavior, however, is crucial to predict whether thermoacoustic instabilities are likely to occur. Tuning the test rig’s acoustic boundary conditions to that of the engine could overcome this issue. Through this, an effective assessment of new burners is possible even in early design phases. In this work a method is proposed, which uses an active control scheme to manipulate the acoustic boundary conditions. It is applied to an atmospheric combustor test rig with a swirl-stabilized burner. In a first step it is shown that the acoustic boundary conditions can be controlled in the cold flow case. Almost arbitrary frequency dependent impedances can be prescribed ranging from fully reflecting (both pressure and velocity node) to anechoic. In particular, an additional virtual length can be added to the combustor outlet by manipulation of the reflection coefficient’s phase. This introduces resonance frequencies different from those of the uncontrolled case. In a second step the impedance tuning concept is applied to the reacting flow. It is demonstrated that the concept is feasible despite the harsh environmental conditions in a combustion chamber. The effect of different levels of reflection at the combustion chamber outlet on the combustion process is investigated. In addition to that, a study of the influence of the simulated combustor length on the system’s resonance frequencies is conducted.