Blowoff behavior of bluff body stabilized flames in vitiated and partially premixed flows
Date of Completion
January 2010
Keywords
Engineering, Aerospace|Engineering, Chemical|Engineering, Mechanical
Degree
Ph.D.
Abstract
Turbulent flame holding and blowoff characteristics of bluff body stabilized flames were measured in an enclosed rectangular duct with a triangular flame holder in vitiated, premixed and unvitiated, asymmetrically stratified flows. Blowoff stability margins were characterized, with chemiluminescence measurements performed by high-speed imaging to capture flame dynamics during blow off. As the equivalence ratio was decreased, local extinction along the shear layer flames occurred with greater frequency and proximity to the wake stagnation zone. Decreased equivalence ratio resulted in extinction events at the trailing edge of the stagnation zone, where reactants were convected into the recirculation zone and burned. Eventually, increasing reactant dilution of the recirculation zone either increased the ignition time scale or the lowered the strain tolerance of the propagating flames in the flame anchoring region, resulting in lift-off or extinction, and the near field shear layer flames convected to the wake stagnation zone, where they continued to propagate. From there, the flames were convected upstream into the recirculation zone, where they were eventually quenched. ^ Simultaneous PIV and OH PLIF measurements captured the flame edge location and aerodynamic behavior as blowoff was approached. Two-dimensional hydrodynamic stretch alone the flame front and flow field vorticity maps were extracted from the combined PIV/OH PLIF data. The distribution of flame stretch shifted to greater values as the equivalence ratio decreased. ^ Asymmetric fuel distributions, measured with acetone LW, were found to increase the equivalence ratio at blow off from that found with uniformly-fueled flows. This was attributed to the greater wake instability and extinction of the lean-side flames. The asymmetrically fueled flames were more susceptible to thermoacoustic instabilities when the shedding frequency was near an acoustic eigenmode of the exhaust duct, due to the decreased attenuation of the Bénard-Von Kármán vortex shedding instability on the lean side of the wake. ^
Recommended Citation
Tuttle, Steven G, "Blowoff behavior of bluff body stabilized flames in vitiated and partially premixed flows" (2010). Doctoral Dissertations. AAI3428890.
https://digitalcommons.lib.uconn.edu/dissertations/AAI3428890