Sub-Scale Demonstration of the Active Feedback Control of Gas-Turbine Combustion Instabilities

Described are sub-scale tests that successfully demonstrate active feedback control as a means of suppressing damaging combustion oscillations in natural-gas-fueled, lean-premix combustors. The control approach is to damp the oscillations by suitably modulating an auxiliary flow of fuel injected near the flame. The control system incorporates state observer software that can ascertain the frequency, amplitude, and phase of the dominant modes of combustion oscillation, and a sub-scale fuel flow modulator that responds to frequencies well above 1 kHz. The demonstration was conducted on a test combustor that could sustain acoustically coupled combustion instabilities at preheat and pressurization conditions approaching those of gas-turbine engine operation. With the control system inactive, two separate instabilities occurred with combined amplitudes of pressure oscillations exceeding 70 kPa (10 psi). The active control system produced four-fold overall reduction in these amplitudes. With the exception of an explainable control response limitation at one frequency, this reduction represented a major milestone in the implementation of active control. [S0742-4795(00)00702-X]