Active control of jet premixed flames in a model combustor with manipulation of large-scale vortical structures and mixing

Active control of a bluff-body stabilized methane/air jet flame issued from a coaxial nozzle is made by using miniature magnetic flap actuators attached to the outer nozzle. CH radical chemiluminescence, and CO and NOx emissions are measured to assess the flame characteristics. By changing the flapping Strouhal number, the flame stability and CO emission are drastically improved under different equivalence ratio (ϕ) conditions. At ϕ = 0.72, the optimum Strouhal number for stable combustion is unity, since methane/air mixing is enhanced by large-scale vortices synchronized with the flap motion. On the other hand, at a lower equivalence ratio of ϕ = 0.48, the optimum Strouhal number is much larger than unity; with small-scale vortices, the premixed combustion is stabilized by stratified mixing. In addition to acetone and OH-PLIF, a new two-line OH-PLIF is employed for flame temperature measurement. The longitudinal flame temperature distribution is obtained from conditional-averaged OH fluorescence intensities at the OH front taken with two different excitation lines. CO and NOx emission characteristics of the controlled flame are discussed on the basis of the local fuel and OH distributions and the flame temperature.