Stability and Control of Lean Premixed Combustion

• Ray Speth
• Murat Altay
• Duane Hudgins
• Prof. Ahmed F. Ghoniem

We are investigating both passive and active control strategies to combat combustion instability in a backward-facing step combustor. Our experimental combustor operates at atmospheric pressure with a maximum power of around 50 kW. Mixtures of propane, hydrogen and carbon monoxide may be used as fuels. Instrumentation used to investigate the flame behavior includes:

• pressure transducers
• thermocouples
• CO and NO_x emissions analyzers
• Linear photodiode array measuring CH* or OH* chemiluminescence
• High-speed video

The RGD lab's backward-facing-step combustor.

A lean propane–air flame in the backward-facing step combustor.