Passive control of thermoacoustic instabilities in swirl-stabilized combustion at elevated pressures

Abstract

In this study, a porous insert is placed at the dump plane of a swirl-stabilized lean premixed combustor to passively suppress thermoacoustic instabilities. The diffuser-shaped annular ring of porous inert material influences the turbulent flow field directly, including recirculation zones and vortical and/or shear layer structures to passively control the acoustic performance of the combustor. The porous inert material is made of silicon carbide–hafnium carbide coated, high-strength, high-temperature-resistant open-cell foam materials. In this study, the porous insert concept is investigated at above-ambient operating pressures to demonstrate its suitability for practical combustion applications. Experiments are conducted in quartz and metal combustors, without and with the porous insert while varying operating pressure, equivalence ratio, and reactant flow rate. Measurements show that the porous insert, and consequent changes in the combustor flow field, decrease the sound pressure levels at the frequency of combustion instability at all operating conditions investigated in this study. The porous insert also decreases the broadband combustion noise, i.e. the measured sound pressure levels over a wide frequency range.