Sensitivity analysis of thermoacoustic instabilities

Thermoacoustic instability is a phenomenon that occurs in numerous combustion systems, from rockets to land based gas turbines. The resulting acoustic oscillations can result in severe vibrations, thrust oscillations, thermal stresses and mechanical loads that lead to fatigue or even failure. This propensity to instability has been found to occur much more frequently in lean premixed combustion, one of the recent methods used in the gas turbine industry of aeroengines and power gas turbines to reduce NOx emissions. In this work we consider a simplified combustion system, and analyse the sensitivity of its thermoacoustic modes to small changes in the flame and combustor geometry parameters. Such a sensitivity analysis offers insights on how best to change the combustion system so as to "design-out" instability. The simplified combustor is modelled using a low order network representation: linear plane acoustic waves are combined with the appropriate acoustic boundary and flame jump conditions and a linear n-tau flame model. A sensitivity analysis is then performed using adjoint methods, with special focus on the sensitivity of the modes to parameters, such as reflection coefficients and flame model gain and time delay. The gradient information obtained reveals how the thermoacoustic modes of the system respond to changes to the various parameters. The results offer key insights into the behaviour and coupling of different types of modes - for example acoustic modes and so-called "intrinsic" modes associated with the flame model. They also provide insights into the optimal configuration for the design of such combustors.