Numerical simulation of self-excited combustion oscillation in a dump combustor with bluff-body

Combustion instability has been considered as very important issue for developing gas turbine and rocket engine. There is a need for fundamental understanding of combustion instability. In this study, combustion instability was numerically and experimentally investigated in a dump combustor with bluff body. The fuel and air mixture had overall equivalence ratio of 0.9 and was injected toward dump combustor. The pressure oscillation with approximately 256Hz was experimentally obtained. For numerical simulation, the standard k-ε model was used for turbulence and the hybrid combustion model (eddy dissipation model and kinetically controlled model) was applied. After calculating steady solution, unsteady calculation was performed with forcing small perturbation on initial that solution. Pressure amplitude and frequency measured by pressure sensor is nearly the same as those predicted by numerical simulation. Furthermore, it is clear that a combustion instability involving vortex shedding is affected by acoustic-vortex-combustion interaction. The phase difference between the pressure and velocity is π/2, and that between the pressure and heat release rate is in excitation range described by Rayleigh, which is obvious that combustion instability for the bluff body combustor meets thermoacoustic instability criterion.