Lipika Kabiraj

Route to chaos for combustion instability in ducted laminar premixed flames

Complex thermoacoustic oscillations are observed experimentally in a simple laboratory combustor that burns lean premixed fuel-air mixture, as a result of nonlinear interaction between the acoustic field and the combustion processes. The application of nonlinear time series analysis, particularly techniques based on phase space reconstruction from acquired pressure data, reveals rich dynamical behavior and the existence of several complex states. A route to chaos for thermoacoustic instability is established experimentally for the first time. We show that, as the location of the heat source is gradually varied, self-excited periodic thermoacoustic oscillations undergo transition to chaos via the Ruelle-Takens scenario.

Bifurcations of Self-Excited Ducted Laminar Premixed Flames

Bifurcation analysis is performed on experimental data obtained from a simple setup comprising ducted laminar premixed conical flames in order to investigate the features of nonlinear thermoacoustic oscillations. It is observed that as the bifurcation parameter is varied, the system undergoes a series of bifurcations leading to characteristically different nonlinear oscillations. Through the application of nonlinear time series analysis to pressure and flame (CH * chemiluminescence) intensity time traces, these oscillations are characterized as periodic, aperiodic, or chaotic oscillations, and subsequently the nature of the obtained bifurcations is explained based on dynamical systems theory. Nonlinear interaction between the flames and the acoustic modes of the duct is clearly reflected in the high speed flame images acquired simultaneously with pressure time series.

Chaos in an imperfectly premixed model combustor

This article reports nonlinear bifurcations observed in a laboratory scale, turbulent combustor operating under imperfectly premixed mode with global equivalence ratio as the control parameter. The results indicate that the dynamics of thermoacoustic instability correspond to quasi-periodic bifurcation to low-dimensional, deterministic chaos, a route that is common to a variety of dissipative nonlinear systems. The results support the recent identification of bifurcation scenarios in a laminar premixed flame combustor (Kabiraj et al., Chaos: Interdiscip. J. Nonlinear Sci. 22, 023129 (2012)) and extend the observation to a practically relevant combustor configuration.

Investigating the dynamics of combustion-driven oscillations leading to lean blowout

The dynamics of combustion-driven thermoacoustic oscillations for a ducted laminar premixed flame has been investigated in lean equivalence ratio conditions. Combustion instability appears in the system as acoustic pressure and flame surface oscillations following a Hopf bifurcation. Further change in the control parameter leads to subsequent bifurcations, causing a rich dynamical behavior such as quasi-periodic and intermittent burst oscillations to appear in the system. During the burst oscillation phase, the system dynamics resembles the flame blowout phenomenon, which is of interest in practical combustion applications.

Recurrence Analysis of Combustion Noise

Recurrence analysis of phase space trajectories reconstructed from scalar time series—a relatively new technique in the field of combustion dynamics—is proposed for analyzing combustion noise data. A demonstration based on the implementation of this analysis on combustion noise data acquired in experiments on an open bluff-body stabilized turbulent premixed flame is presented in this article. A combined analysis methodology involving conventional techniques: spectral analysis and proper orthogonal decomposition, together with recurrence analysis is found to be effective in identifying features embedded in combustion noise signals. In particular, the new perspective provides insights into the temporal transitions of pressure fluctuations between noise and periodic dynamics. The recurrence analysis technique, which is found to be instrumental in extracting the dynamical makeup of combustion noise signals in this work, is foreseen to be greatly beneficial for the analysis of experimental and numerical result...

Coherence resonance in a thermoacoustic system.

We experimentally investigated the noise-induced dynamics of a prototypical thermoacoustic system undergoing a subcritical Hopf bifurcation to limit cycle oscillations. The study was performed prior to the bistable regime. Analysis of the characteristics of pressure oscillations in the combustor and fluctuations in the heat release rate from the flame-the two physical entities involved in thermoacoustic coupling-at increasing levels of noise indicated precursors to the Hopf bifurcation. These precursors were further identified to be a result of coherence resonance.

Experimental Study of Noise Generation by a Turbulent Premixed Flame

We focus on investigating temporal dynamics of combustion noise. Specifically, the dynamics of direct combustion noise, emitted from a premixed turbulent jet flame are studied for the first time with the help of recurrence analysis. The analysis showed that combustion noise is characterized by irregularly spaced periodic windows. Comparisons are carried out to bring out differences in the time trace of acoustic pressure for different equivalence ratios.

Characterizing the signature of flame flashback precursor through recurrence analysis

In this paper, it is shown that prior to flashback, small dynamical changes appear in the system. These changes appear as a drift in the recurrence plots and are found to be associated with a gradual increase in the determinism and recurrence rate. Thus, this study indicates that precursors to flame flashback exist and can be detected in the multidimensional phase space reconstructed from pressure measurements acquired during flashback. This observation could have broad academic as well as industrial implications.

Experimental Studies of Bifurcations Leading to Chaos in a Laboratory Scale Thermoacoustic System

Bifurcation analysis is conducted on experimental data obtained from a simple setup comprising of ducted, laminar pre-mixed conical flames to investigate the features of nonlinear thermoacoustic oscillations. It is observed that as the bifurcation parameter is varied, the system undergoes series of bifurcations leading to characteristically different nonlinear oscillations. Through the application of nonlinear time series analysis on pressure and flame (CH* chemiluminescence) intensity time traces, these oscillations are characterised as periodic, aperiodic or chaotic oscillations and subsequently the nature of the obtained bifurcations is explained based on dynamical systems theory. Nonlinear interaction between the flames and the acoustic modes of the duct is clearly reflected in the high speed flame images acquired simultaneously with pressure and flame intensity measurements.Copyright

Investigation of Subcritical Instability in Ducted Premixed Flames

An experimental investigation of the bistable region of instability in a thermoacoustic system comprising of ducted, pre-mixed laminar flames has been performed. The stability diagram of the system is obtained and the bistable region for a range of flame locations at different fuel-air mixture equivalence ratios is identified. Subsequently, threshold amplitudes for triggering instability in the system using sinusoidal acoustic forcing, introduced externally, is obtained. It is observed that depending on how close the system is to the Hopf point and the nature of oscillations at the Hopf point, the triggered oscillations can exhibit different dynamical behavior.Copyright