Effect of the fuel-air flow velocity on heat release rate of swirling non-premixed methane flames

A laboratory-scale gas turbine model combustor fueled with methane is studied experimentally with the aid of three-dimensional computed tomography of chemiluminescence (3D-CTC) and high speed (5 kHz) chemiluminescence imaging. Various fuel-lean operating conditions were tested to investigate the impact of flow velocity on heat release rate oscillation and spatial structure transition with fixed global equivalence ratio of about 0.65 and dump plane velocity of 2.9–18.3 m/s. In the study of combustion structure transition, the three-dimensional relative emissions of CH* were measured and taken as qualitative indicators of the heat release rate. This 3D measurement method utilizes CH* images from 8 directional as inputs combined with tomographic algorithms to compute the 3D distribution of CH* CL intensities. For all tested conditions, pronounced extension of inner recirculation zone (IRZ) along the nozzle is observed under the attached (V-shaped) swirl stabilized flames. During the increase of Reynolds number, the heat release zone changing obviously along the nozzle radial and axis direction, and the largest heat release plane moves downstream significantly. In addition, an intensified high-speed camera was adopted for the heat release dynamics study. Strong oscillations appeared in the flame zone that significantly affected the total heat release oscillations, and oscillation increases with the raise of Reynolds number.