Robust combustor design based on flame transfer function modification

Operation under stable conditions is an important prerequisite for gas turbine safety. While recent studies have focused primarily on acoustic design to avoid thermoacoustic instabilities, in the present study we shift the focus to improving stability margins by flame transfer function (FTF) modification. The flame transfer function of premixed flames is affected by various mechanisms such as variations in equivalence ratio, swirl fluctuations and shear layer instabilities. These mechanisms can be influenced by modifying parameters such as fuel distribution, injection location, swirl number or gas composition. Based on the Nyquist stability method we formulate criteria for how and at what frequencies the flame transfer function needs to be modified, in order to increase the stability margins of a thermoacoustic system. Gain and phase margin as well as the sensitivity function serve as measures of stability. The criteria are limited to single frequencies, which allows experimental FTF optimization with manageable effort. In the second part of this study it is shown that the Nyquist method can also be used as an efficient and compact way to determine whether the uncertainties of subsystems can affect the overall stability, without requiring eigenvalue calculations.