Large Eddy Simulation of Low Swirl Flames Under External Flow Excitations

Low swirl flame characteristics under external flow excitations are numerically investigated using large eddy simulations with a dynamically thickened flame combustion model. A finite volume scheme on a Cartesian grid with a dynamic one equation eddy viscosity subgrid scale model is used for large eddy simulations. The excitations are imposed on inlet velocity profiles by a sinusoidal forcing function over a wide range of amplitudes and frequencies. Present investigation shows that although, the swirling motion of the low swirl flame is not intense enough to induce a recirculation zone in ensemble averaged results, external flow excitations increase the local swirl number upstream of the flame front. Such increase in the local swirl number is at maximum value when the low swirl flame is excited at the dominant frequency of the flow field, which in turn induces a vortex breakdown and hence a central recirculation zone. The strength and size of the time averaged recirculation zone depend on both the amplitude and frequency of the excitations. Moreover, phase-locked results indicate that external flow excitations induce local swirl fluctuations ahead of the flame front which alter the strength of the recirculation zone at different phase angles of the excitations.     

Axial plus tangential entry swirling jet

This paper presents an experimental investigation on swirling jets with well-defined initial conditions. The axial, radial, and azimuthal velocity components, with their respective fluctuations were measured using high spatial–resolution particle image velocimetry. These detailed measurements allow the initial conditions of the swirling jets to be established and the jets to be characterized using various swirl number definitions. The significance of each term in the swirl number calculations are quantified, and the effect of the common assumptions and simplifications are examined. The characteristics of the jets in relation to the initial conditions are then investigated and compared with the previous studies using similar characterization parameters. Jets with Reynolds number of approximately 5700 and swirl conditions ranging from a non-swirling reference case to high swirl are studied. General properties of swirling jets such as higher spreading rate, higher centerline velocity decay, and higher turbulence level are observed. When the degree of swirl is sufficiently high, vortex breakdown occurs. A swirl number of 0.94 is recorded for a high swirl case prior to vortex breakdown, much higher than the critical swirl number reported in the literature. This behavior is attributed to the effect of the initial conditions on the swirl number calculation.     

Obstacle-induced spiral vortex breakdown

An experimental investigation on vortex breakdown dynamics is performed. An adverse pressure gradient is created along the axis of a wing-tip vortex by introducing a sphere downstream of an elliptical hydrofoil. The instrumentation involves high-speed visualizations with air bubbles used as tracers and 2D Laser Doppler Velocimeter (LDV). Two key parameters are identified and varied to control the onset of vortex breakdown: the swirl number, defined as the maximum azimuthal velocity divided by the free-stream velocity, and the adverse pressure gradient. They were controlled through the incidence angle of the elliptical hydrofoil, the free-stream velocity and the sphere diameter. A single helical breakdown of the vortex was systematically observed over a wide range of experimental parameters. The helical breakdown coiled around the sphere in the direction opposite to the vortex but rotated along the vortex direction. We have observed that the location of vortex breakdown moved upstream as the swirl number or the sphere diameter was increased. LDV measurements were corrected using a reconstruction procedure taking into account the so-called vortex wandering and the size of the LDV measurement volume. This allows us to investigate the spatio-temporal linear stability properties of the flow and demonstrate that the flow transition from columnar to single helical shape is due to a transition from convective to absolute instability.     

VORTEX SHEDDING RESONANCE FROM A ROTATIONALLY OSCILLATING CYLINDER

Vortex shedding resonance of a circular cylinder wake to a forced rotational oscillation has been investigated experimentally by measuring the velocity fluctuations in the wake, pressure distributions over the cylinder surface, and visualizing the flow field with respect to cylinder oscillations. The vortex shedding resonance occurs near the natural shedding frequency at small amplitude of cylinder oscillations, while the peak resonance frequency shifts to a lower value with an increase in oscillation amplitude. The drag and lift forces acting on the cylinder at fixed forcing Strouhal number indicate that the phase lag of fluid forces to the cylinder oscillations increases with an increase in oscillation amplitude, supporting the variation of resonance frequency with oscillation amplitude. The comparative study of the measured pressure distributions and the simultaneous flow visualizations with respect to cylinder rotation shows the mechanisms of phase lag, which is due to the strengthened vortex formation and the modification of the surface pressure distributions.     

Dynamic Response of Turbulent Low Emission Flames at Different Vortex Breakdown Conditions

The classic Flame Transfer Function (FTF) used in the thermoacoustic stability analysis of lean premixed combustors is linked, in a mathematically strict way, to the flow coherent structures using Large Eddy Simulation. This is based on a methodology which combines the Wiener-Hopf system identification filter—separating any field variables into a dynamic contribution driven by external forcing plus a noise contribution given by turbulent fluctuations—with the extended formulation of the Proper Orthogonal Decomposition (POD). The method is applied to partially premixed flames stabilized at two different types of Central Recirculation Zone (CRZ) due to the mechanism of vortex breakdown of the flow through a swirl burner: type A, where the CRZ appears rather narrow in the radial direction with apex located close to the burner exit and type B, where the CRZ is entirely located in the combustor and appears more flat at its apex than what observed in case of the type A vortex flow. Rather different properties are observed for the FTF. Flames stabilized at the narrow CRZ (type A), respond to inflow forcing with a time delay which depends much more on the bulk equivalence ratio than flames stabilized at the thick CRZ (type B). On the other hand the amplitude of the FTF in the case of the narrow CRZ is in general lower than in case of the thick and flat CRZ where amplification factors of the order of 4–5 are reached. By allowing a reasonable explanation of the observed trends, the methodology developed here can give an important contribution to the development of gas turbine burners.     

Large Eddy Simulations of Unconfined Non-reacting and Reacting Turbulent Low Swirl Jets

The low swirl flow is a novel method for stabilizing lean premixed combustion to achieve low emissions of nitrogen oxides. Understanding the characteristics of low swirl flows is of both practical and fundamental interest. In this paper, in order to gain better insight into low swirl stabilized combustion, large eddy simulation and dynamically thickened flame combustion modeling are used to characterize various features of non-reacting and reacting low swirl flows including vortex breakdown, shear layers’ instability, and coherent structures. Furthermore, four test cases with different equivalence ratios are studied to evaluate the effects of equivalence ratio on the flame and flow characteristics. A finite volume scheme on a Cartesian grid with a dynamic one equation eddy viscosity subgrid model is used for large eddy simulations. The obtained results show that the combustion heat release and increase in equivalence ratio toward the stoichiometric value decrease the local swirl number of the flow field, while increasing the flow spreading at the burner outlet. Results show that the flame becomes W shaped as the equivalence ratio increases. Moreover, the combination of the swirling motion and combustion heat release temporally imposes a vortex breakdown in the post-flame region, which leads to occurrence of a transient recirculation zone. The temporal recirculation zone disappears downstream of the burner outlet due to merging of the inner shear layer from all sides at the centerline. Also, various analyses of shear layers’ wavy and vortical structures show that combustion heat release has the effect of decreasing the instability amplitude and vortex shedding frequency.     

Non-linear Response of Turbulent Premixed Flames to Imposed Inlet Velocity Oscillations of Two Frequencies

This paper describes an experimental study investigating the non-linear response of lean premixed air/ethylene flames to strong inlet velocity perturbations of two frequencies. The combustor has a centrally-placed bluff body and a short quartz section. The annulus between the bluff body and the flow tube, which also housed the acoustic pressure transducers, allowed the reactants into the combustor. The inlet flow was perturbed using loudspeakers. High speed laser tomography, OH* chemiluminescence and OH Planar Laser Induced Fluorescence (PLIF) have been used for flow visualization, heat release and flame surface density (FSD) measurements respectively. The heat release fluctuations increased initially linearly with inlet velocity amplitude for a single frequency forcing, with saturation occurring after forcing amplitudes of around 15% of the bulk velocity, which was found to occur due to vortex roll up and subsequent flame annihilation. The introduction of energy at the second frequency (i.e, the harmonic) was found to change the vortex formation and shedding frequency, depending on the level of forcing. This resulted in a non-linear flame response transfer function (defined as the amplitude of unsteady heat release divided by the amplitude of velocity perturbation at the fundamental) whose amplitude depended greatly on the amount of harmonic content present in the perturbations. The introduction of higher harmonics reduced the flame annihilation events, which are responsible for saturation, thus reducing non-linearity in the amplitude dependence of the flame response. These results were further verified using sequential time-resolved OH PLIF measurements. The findings from this study suggest that the acoustic response of the flame was mostly due to flame area variation effected by modulation of the annular jet and evolution of the shear layers.     

Application of PIV to velocity measurements in a liquid film flowing down an inclined cylinder

PIV technique is applied for measurements of instant velocity distributions in a liquid film flowing down an inclined tube in the form of a wavy rivulet. An application of special optical calibration is applied to correct distortion effects caused by the curvature of the interface. A vortex flow of liquid is observed inside a wave hump in the reference system moving with wave phase velocity. Conditionally averaged profiles of longitudinal and transverse components of liquid velocity are obtained for different cross-sections of developed non-linear waves. It is shown that the increase in wave amplitude slightly changes the location of the vortex center. The analysis of modification of vortex motion character due to wavy flow conditions, such as tube inclination angle, film Reynolds number, wave excitation frequency, is fulfilled.     

An analysis of unsteady highly turbulent swirling flow in a model vortex combustor

This paper reports an experimental investigation of a non-reacting turbulent swirling flow in a practical vortex combustor. The flow was examined for the conditions characteristic of the presence of a breakdown zone and a strong flow instability appearing at swirl numbers S>0.5. Flow visualization techniques, LDA measurements and acoustic probes were employed to study the unsteady flow characteristics. Based on the experimental results a positive first helical mode of instability was identified with a wavelength and frequency depending on swirl. The wavelength was confirmed to grow monotonically with S, while the dominant frequency of the flow pulsations was found to have an unusual parabolic evolution with swirl, with a minimum at S _min=0.88. This finding was interpreted using a proposed kinematic model based on the contribution of two mechanisms: rotation and axial motion of the helical vortex. It was concluded that for S<S _min the instability frequency is essentially dominated by the axial translation of the spiral vortex being inversely proportional to S and therefore giving a decreasing trend. For S>S _min the frequency of the flow precession is more dependent on the angular transportation of the vortex core, which resulted in the expected growing dependence on S.     

Receptivity of the Blunt-Leading-Edge Plate Boundary Layer to Unsteady Vortex Perturbations

The response of the boundary layer on a plate with a blunt leading edge to frozen-in vortex perturbations whose vorticity is normal to the plate surface is found. It is shown that these vortices generate an inhomogeneity of the streamwise velocity component in the boundary layer. This inhomogeneity is analogous to the streaky structure developing as the degree of free-stream turbulence increases. The dependence of the amplitude and shape of the boundary layer inhomogeneity on the distance from the leading edge, the streamwise and spanwise scales, and other parameters is found for periodic and local initial perturbations. It is shown that the receptivity of the boundary layer decreases with increase in the frequency and with decrease in the streamwise perturbation scale.     

Considerations for the design of swirl chambers for the cyclone cooling of turbine blades and for other applications with high swirl intensity

The focus of this study lies on turbulent incompressible swirling flows with high swirl intensity. A systematic parameter study is conducted to examine the sensitivity of the mean velocity field in a swirl chamber to changes in the Reynolds number, swirl intensity and channel outlet geometry. The investigated parameter range reflects the typical kinematic flow conditions found in heat transfer applications, such as the cooling of the turbine blade known as cyclone cooling. These applications require a swirl intensity, which is typically much higher than necessary for vortex breakdown. The resulting flows are known as flow regime II and III. In comparison to flow regime I, which denotes a swirling flow without vortex breakdown, these flow regimes are characterized by a subcritical behavior. In this context, subcritical means that the flow is affected by the downstream channel section. Based on mean velocity field measurements in various swirl chamber configurations, it is shown that flow regime III is particularly sensitive to these effects. The channel outlet geometry becomes a determining parameter and, therefore, small changes at the outlet can produce entirely different flow patterns in the swirl chamber. In contrast, flow regime II, as well as flow regime I and axial channel flows, are much less sensitive to changes at the channel outlet. The knowledge about the sensitivity of the flow in different flow regimes is highly relevant for the design of a cyclone cooling system. Cooling systems employing flow regime III can result in a weakly robust flow system that may change completely over the operating range. As a remedy, the swirl intensity needs to be decreased so that flow regime III cannot be reached, which, however, reduces the maximum achievable heat transfer in the cooling system. Alternatively, the flow has to transition back from flow regime III to flow regime II or I before the flow leaves the swirl chamber. Two practical methods are presented. These findings can be directly applied in the design processes of future cyclone cooling systems, and other applications of swirling flow.     

Experiments on the formation of a recirculation zone in swirling coaxial jets

 The near flow field of coaxial air jets, with swirl in the outer one, was studied using flow visualization and hot-wire anemometry. The flow is sensitive to both the swirl number and the mass flow ratio between the outer and inner jets. A necessary condition for the formation of an internal recirculation zone (IRZ) is that the swirl number must exceed a minimum value which depends on the mass flow ratio. Spectral analysis of the velocity fluctuations indicates that the formation of an IRZ in the present flow does not appear to be related to the growth of convective flow instabilities. Analysis of the flow visualization and X-wire data indicates that the vorticity dynamics model for vortex breakdown proposed by Brown and Lopez [J Fluid Mech (1990) 222: 553] provides a plausible mechanism for the formation of an IRZ in this flow. Received: 14 June 1999/Accepted: 7 December 1999     

Mass and momentum transport in the near field of swirling turbulent jets. Effect of swirl rate

Local transport of the flow momentum and scalar admixture in the near-field of turbulent swirling jets (Re = 5,000) has been investigated by using a combination of the particle image velocimetry and planar laser-induced fluorescence methods. Advection and turbulent and molecular diffusions are evaluated based on the measured distributions of the mean velocity and concentration and the Reynolds stresses and fluxes. As has been quantified from the data, the flow swirl intensifies the entrainment of the surrounding fluid and promotes mass and momentum exchange in the outer mixing layer. A superimposed swirl results in the appearance of a wake/recirculation region at the jet axis and, consequently, the formation of an inner shear layer. In contrast to the scalar admixture, the momentum exchange in the inner shear layer is found to be strongly intensified by the swirl. For the jet with the highest considered swirl rate, a substantial portion of the surrounding fluid is found to enter the unsteady central recirculation zone, where it mixes with the jet that is issued from the nozzle. The contribution of the coherent velocity fluctuations, which are induced by large-scale vortex structures, to the turbulent transport has been evaluated based on triple decomposition, which was based on proper orthogonal decomposition analysis of the velocity data sets. For the considered domain of the jet with the highest swirl rate and vortex breakdown, the contributions of detected helical vortex structures, inducing pressing vortex core, to the radial fluxes of the flow momentum and the scalar admixture are found to locally exceed 65% and 80%, respectively.     

3D numerical simulation of compressible swirling flow induced by means of tangential inlets

The objective of the present work is to predict compressible swirl flow in the nozzle of air‐jet spinning using the realizable k–ε turbulence model and discuss the effect of the nozzle pressure. The periodic change of flow patterns can be observed. The recirculation zone near the wall of the injectors upstream increases in size and moves gradually upstream, whereas the vortex breakdown in the injector downstream shifts slowly towards the nozzle outlet during the whole period. A low axial velocity in the core region moves gradually away from the centerline, and the magnitude of the center reverse flow and the area occupied by it increase with axial distance due to the vortex breakdown. From the tangential velocity profile, there is a very small free‐vortex zone. With increasing nozzle pressure, the velocity increases and the location of vortex breakdown is moved slightly downward. However, the increase in the velocity tends to decline at nozzle pressure up to a high level. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Volumetric three-component velocimetry measurements of the turbulent flow around a Rushton turbine

Volumetric three-component velocimetry measurements have been taken of the flow field near a Rushton turbine in a stirred tank reactor. This particular flow field is highly unsteady and three-dimensional, and is characterized by a strong radial jet, large tank-scale ring vortices, and small-scale blade tip vortices. The experimental technique uses a single camera head with three apertures to obtain approximately 15,000 three-dimensional vectors in a cubic volume. These velocity data offer the most comprehensive view to date of this flow field, especially since they are acquired at three Reynolds numbers (15,000, 107,000, and 137,000). Mean velocity fields and turbulent kinetic energy quantities are calculated. The volumetric nature of the data enables tip vortex identification, vortex trajectory analysis, and calculation of vortex strength. Three identification methods for the vortices are compared based on: the calculation of circumferential vorticity; the calculation of local pressure minima via an eigenvalue approach; and the calculation of swirling strength again via an eigenvalue approach. The use of two-dimensional data and three-dimensional data is compared for vortex identification; a ‘swirl strength’ criterion is less sensitive to completeness of the velocity gradient tensor and overall provides clearer identification of the tip vortices. The principal components of the strain rate tensor are also calculated for one Reynolds number case as these measures of stretching and compression have recently been associated with tip vortex characterization. Vortex trajectories and strength compare favorably with those in the literature. No clear dependence of trajectory on Reynolds number is deduced. The visualization of tip vortices up to 140° past blade passage in the highest Reynolds number case is notable and has not previously been shown.     

Interchangeability of vortex-breakdown types

In order to investigate the connection between the bubble and the spiral form of vortex breakdown, experiments were conducted: an external disturbance in the form of an azimuthally spinning waveform was imposed in a pipe. The azimuthal wave number was varied by adjusting the phase difference among four oscillating pistons mounted circumferentially on the pipe. By imposing a disturbance of zero azimuthal wave number, a spiral was transformed into a bubble, and this occurred only for selective piston frequencies; the vortex breakdown which altered from the spiral to the bubble moved upstream, where it remained as a bubble as long as the external disturbance remained. Once the disturbance was removed, the bubble returned to a spiral. By imposing a disturbance of azimuthal wave number +1 (the first circumferential mode rotating in the same direction as the mean swirl), a bubble was transformed into a spiral for selective piston frequencies, and the spiral moved downstream. These preferred frequencies were found to be the same as the unexcited frequencies observed in the spiral in its natural state. As long as the external disturbance was imposed, the breakdown altered from the bubble to the spiral remained as a spiral; once the disturbance was removed, the spiral reverted to a bubble. By imposing a disturbance with azimuthal wave number -1 (the first circumferential mode rotating in the opposite direction to the mean swirl), no change was detected in either a bubble or a spiral. By imposing a disturbance with azimuthal wave number 2 (the second circumferential mode), for selective piston frequencies a bubble was transformed into what appears to be the so-called two-tailed type. Thus, it appears that hydrodynamic instability plays a role in interchanging vortex breakdown types, and a comparison with available stability theories is discussed.     

圆环旋转黏性液体射流空间不稳定性研究

利用线性稳定性理论, 进行了液体黏性对不同旋转强度下圆环旋转液体射流 空间不稳定性影响的研究. 在推导出的三维扰动下具有固体涡核型旋转速度分布的圆环旋转 黏性液体射流色散方程的基础上, 针对中低速射流, 进行了类反对称模式与类对称模式下圆 环旋转黏性液体射流的空间不稳定性分析. 研究结果表明, 对于旋转强度较大的圆环旋转液 体射流, 液体黏性的增加, 不利于射流的破碎; 随着液体黏性的增加, 射流的特征频率和最 不稳定波数减小. 然而, 对于旋转强度较小的圆环旋转液体射流, 液体黏性的增加, 有利于 射流的破碎; 随着液体黏性的增加, 类反对称模式下射流特征频率先减小后增大, 类对称模 式下射流特征频率增大; 随着液体黏性的增加, 类反对称模式下射流最不稳定波数先减小后 增大, 类对称模式下射流最不稳定波数增大.     

Flow in a simple swirl chamber with and without controlled inlet forcing

Results are presented from a swirl chamber with and without controlled inlet forcing. The controlled inlet forcing is induced using arrays of vortex generators placed along one wall of the swirl chamber inlet duct. Flow visualization results are given, along with surveys of circumferential mean velocity, static pressure, and total pressure, at Reynolds numbers (based on inlet duct characteristics) as high as 8000. The controlled inlet forcing provides means to alter and control: (i) the spacing and number of Görtler vortices across the span of the swirl chamber, (ii) the amount of vortex development at a particular Reynolds number and circumferential location, (iii) the circumferential location and Reynolds number of initial Görtler vortex development, and (iv) the circumferential location and Reynolds number of Görtler vortex breakup into more chaotic flow.     

The effects of inlet conditions and expansion ratio on the onset of flow reversal in swirling flow in a sudden expansion

Experiments are reported in which the minimum swirl intensity required to produce a central recirculation zone in a swirling sudden expansion flow is determined as a function of expansion ratio and inlet conditions. Using a swirl generator which allows for independent variation of velocity profile shape and swirl number, it is shown that an inlet tangential velocity distribution with a large solid body vortex core or an axial velocity profile with a maximum on the axis will lead to a higher critical swirl.     

Symmetric vortex shedding in the near wake of a circular cylinder due to streamwise perturbations

Symmetric perturbations imposed on cylinder wakes may result in a modification of the vortex shedding mode from its natural antisymmetric, or alternating, to a symmetric one where twin vortices are simultaneously shed from both sides of the cylinder. In this paper, the symmetric mode in the wake of a circular cylinder is induced by periodic perturbations imposed on the in-flow velocity. The wake field is examined by PIV and LDV for Reynolds numbers about 1200 and for a range of perturbation frequencies between three and four times the natural shedding frequency of the unperturbed wake. In this range, a strong competition between symmetric and antisymmetric vortex shedding occurs for the perturbation amplitudes employed. The results show that symmetric formation of twin vortices occurs close to the cylinder synchronized with the oscillatory component of the flow. The symmetric mode rapidly breaks down and gives rise to an antisymmetric arrangement of vortex structures further downstream. The downstream wake may or may not be phase-locked to the imposed oscillation. The number of cycles for which the symmetric vortices persist in the near wake is a probabilistic function of the perturbation frequency and amplitude. Finally, it is shown that symmetric shedding is associated with positive energy transfer from the fluid to the cylinder due to the fluctuating drag.