Comparative Validation Study on Identification of Premixed Flame Transfer Function

The flame transfer function (FTF) of a premixed swirl burner was identified from a time series generated with computational fluid dynamics simulations of compressible, turbulent, reacting flow at nonadiabatic conditions. Results were validated against experimental data. For large eddy simulation (LES), the dynamically thickened flame combustion model with one step kinetics was used. For unsteady simulation in a Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes framework (URANS), the Turbulent Flame Closure model was employed. The FTF identified from LES shows quantitative agreement with experiment for amplitude and phase, especially for frequencies below 200 Hz. At higher frequencies, the gain of the FTF is underpredicted. URANS results show good qualitative agreement, capturing the main features of the flame response. However, the maximum amplitude and the phase lag of the FTF are underpredicted. Using a low-order network model of the test rig, the impact of the discrepancies in predicted FTFs on frequencies and growth rates of the lowest order eigenmodes were assessed. Small differences in predicted FTFs were found to have a significant impact on stability limits. Stability behavior in agreement with experimental data was achieved only with the LES-based flame transfer function. [DOI: 10.1115/1.4004183]