Bistable swirled flames and influence on flame transfer functions

Large Eddy Simulations (LES) are used to study a lean swirl-stabilized gas turbine burner where the flow exhibits two stable states. In the first one, the flame is attached to the central bluff body upstream of the central recirculation zone which contains burnt gases. In the second one the flame is detached from the central bluff body downecirculation zone which is filled by cold unburnt gases and dominated by a strong Precessing Vortex Core (PVC). The existence of these two states has an important effect on the dynamic response of the flame (FTF): both gain and phase of the FTF change significantly in the detached case compared to the attached one, suggesting that the stability of the machine to thermoacoustic oscillations will differ, depending on the flame state. Bifurcation diagrams show that the detached flame cannot be brought back to an attached position with an increased fuel flow rate, but it can be re-attached by forcing it at high amplitudes. The attached flame however, behaves inversely: it can be brought back to the detached position by both decreasing or increasing the pilot mass flow rate, but it remains attached at all forcing amplitudes.