Active control of thermoacoustic oscillation

Combustion processes serve as important sources of energy for both power generation and for transport, ranging from large scale power stations to micro turbines and aeroplane engines. Even though these different applications are quite different in operating conditions and design, their environmental impact has been subject to stringent restrictions. Lean premixed combustion offers a potential to reduce the emission levels, but suffers from instability problems which can be overcome by redesign of the combustion chamber or by the use of active control. This paper addresses the problem of active control of thermoacoustic instabilities in a laboratory test combustion chamber. A fuel actuating strategy is developed and implemented, and the dynamics of the combustion chamber are modeled using system identification methods. Successful damping of the combustion oscillations is shown with different control design methods