La combustion pré mélangée a été depuis longtemps un domaine vaste d’étude au niveau appliqué et fondamental. Bien que la plupart des applications industrielles en combustion aient lieu dans des régimes turbulents, le passage par l’étude laminaire est indispensable pour comprendre les mécanismes fondamentaux des flammes turbulentes. Ce travail de thèse porte essentiellement sur l’étude des différentes instabilités agissant sur un front de flamme laminaire de pré mélange pour des mélanges de propane-air et méthane-air, enrichis ou non en azote. L’étude consiste à mesurer les taux de croissance des perturbations dans un brûleur d’Hele-Shaw formé par deux plaques de verre ($150\times50cm$) très rapprochées (brûleur 2D). Grâce à un système de forçage constitué par des plaques modulées spatialement avec différentes longueurs d’onde, le taux de croissance peut être mesuré même en présence du développement spontané de l’instabilité avec la longueur d’onde la plus instable. A richesse constante et pour des valeurs croissantes de la dilution en oxygène le vecteur d'onde de coupure augmente avec la vitesse de flamme qui devient plus instable. Pour des mélanges de propane ce nombre d’onde augmente également lorsqu'on augmente la richesse à vitesse constante et il diminue dans le cas des mélanges de méthane, cela est en relation avec l'évolution des effets thermodiffusifs dans chacun des cas. Une augmentation de l’épaisseur de la cellule d’Hele-Shaw, aboutit à une augmentation du taux de croissance pour les petits nombres d’onde ainsi que du nombre de Markstein, et à une diminution du taux de croissance pour les grands nombres, du fait des effets des pertes thermiques. / Premixed combustion has been the subject of extensive work, concerning both applications and fundamental aspects. Although in most practical applications combustion occurs in a turbulent environment, the study of laminar flames is important to understand the fundamental mechanisms of turbulent flame propagation. The objective of this work is to study the various instabilities acting on a laminar premixed flame for mixtures of propane-air and methane-air, enriched or not with nitrogen. it consists in measuring the linear growth rates of disturbances in a Hele-Shaw burner formed by two glass plates ($150\times50cm$) separated by a thin gap width (2D burner). Using spatially modulated plates with different wavelengths, the linear growth rate of perturbations can be measured even in the presence of the most unstable wavelength. The experimental values of the linear growth rate as a function of wavenumber are fitted by a linear dispersion relation to estimate the Markstein number and the cutoff wavenumber. For a constant equivalence ratio with increasing values of the dilution in oxygen, the cutoff wavenumber grows with the flame velocity and it is becoming more unstable. The cutoff wave number rises also when the equivalence ratio increases for propane-air mixture and decreases for methane-air mixture, in relation to the evolution of thermal diffusive effects. An enlargement in the thickness of the Hele-Shaw cell results in an increase of the growth rate for small wavenumbers thus in the Markstein number, and in a decline in the growth rate for the large wavenumbers, in relation with the effects of heat losses.

The persistent thrust for a cleaner, greener environment has prompted air pollution regulations to be enforced with increased stringency by environmental protection bodies all over the world. This has prompted gas turbine manufacturers to move from non-premixed combustion to lean, premixed combustion. These lean premixed combustors operate quite fuel-lean compared to the stochiometric, in order to minimize CO and NOx productions, and are very susceptible to oscillations in any of the upstream flow variables. These oscillations cause the heat release rate of the flame to oscillate, which can engage one or more acoustic modes of the combustor or gas turbine components, and under certain conditions, lead to limit cycle oscillations. This phenomenon, called thermoacoustic instabilities, is characterized by very high pressure oscillations and increased heat fluxes at system walls, and can cause significant problems in the routine operability of these combustors, not to mention the occasional hardware damages that could occur, all of which cumulatively cost several millions of dollars. In a bid towards understanding this flow-flame interaction, this research works studies the heat release response of premixed flames to oscillations in reactant equivalence ratio, reactant velocity and pressure, under conditions where the flame preheat zone is convectively compact to these disturbances, using the G-equation. The heat release response is quantified by means of the flame transfer function and together with combustor acoustics, forms a critical component of the analytical models that can predict combustor dynamics. To this end, low excitation amplitude (linear) and high excitation amplitude (nonlinear) responses of the flame are studied in this work. The linear heat release response of lean, premixed flames are seen to be dominated by responses to velocity and equivalence ratio fluctuations at low frequencies, and to pressure fluctuations at high frequencies which are in the vicinity of typical screech frequencies in gas turbine combustors. The nonlinear response problem is exclusively studied in the case of equivalence ratio coupling. Various nonlinearity mechanisms are identified, amongst which the crossover mechanisms, viz., stoichiometric and flammability crossovers, are seen to be responsible in causing saturation in the overall heat release magnitude of the flame. The response physics remain the same across various preheat temperatures and reactant pressures. Finally, comparisons between the chemiluminescence transfer function obtained experimentally and the heat release transfer functions obtained from the reduced order model (ROM) are performed for lean, CH4/Air swirl-stabilized, axisymmetric V-flames. While the comparison between the phases of the experimental and theoretical transfer functions are encouraging, their magnitudes show disagreement at lower Strouhal number gains show disagreement.

A visualisation procedure was developed which predicts excited hydroxyl (OH*) radiation from the Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) solutions of cryogenic hydrogen-oxygen rocket flames. The model of backward ray tracing through inhomogeneous media with a continuously changing refractive index was implemented. It obtains the optical paths of light rays that originate in the rocket chamber, pass through the window and enter a simulated camera. Through the use of spectral modelling, the emission and absorption spectra eλ and κλ are simulated on the ray path from information about temperature, pressure and concentration of constituent species at relevant points. By solving a radiative transfer equation with the integration of emission and absorption spectra along the ray line-by-line, a spectral radiance is calculated, multiplied with the spectral filter transmittance and then integrated into total radiance. The values of total radiances at the window edge are visualised as a simulated 2D image. Such images are comparable with the OH* measurement images. The modelling of refraction effects results in up to 20 % of total radiance range absolute difference compared to line-of-sight integration. The implementation of accurate self-absorption corrects significant over-prediction, which occurs if the flame is assumed to be optically thin. Modelling of refraction results in images with recognisable areas where the effect of a liquid oxygen (LOx) jet core can be observed, as the light is significantly refracted. The algorithm is parallelised and thus ready for use on big computational clusters. It uses partial pre-computation of spectra to reduce computational effort.

Cette recherche se focalise sur les problèmes d’instabilités de combustion hautes fréquences dans les moteurs fusées. Ces instabilités sont connues pour avoir des effets néfastes et peuvent, dans certains cas, causer la destruction du système propulsif. Pour éviter l’apparition de ces instabilités, il est important de connaître les mécanismes qui entretiennent ces phénomènes dynamiques et de comprendre le couplage complexe entre l’injection, la combustion et la résonnance acoustique du système. Ce travail comprend trois parties.La première partie traite de la simulation numérique de jets non-réactifs et réactifs soumis à différentes conditions de modulation afin de comprendre les interactions entre les jets, les flammes et leur environnement. Les calculs numériques de jets ronds non-réactifs ainsi que des flammes plus complexes formées par des injecteurs coaxiaux dans des conditions transcritiques ont été effectuées avec des simulations aux grandes échelles (SGE), adaptées aux conditions gaz réels à l’aide du solveur AVBP-RG. Les jets ronds ont été soumis à des fluctuations de vitesse transverse. Il a été trouvé que pour toutes les amplitudes et fréquences de modulation, le jet est déformé et oscille dans la direction transverse. Ce comportement peut être représenté par un modèle. Les flammes coaxiales ont été soumises à une modulation de débit et de pression. La modulation induit des variations du dégagement de chaleur global. Un modèle mathématique reliant les paramètres modulés au dégagement de chaleur est proposé.La seconde partie contient les travaux expérimentaux. Dans ce cadre, un nouveau banc expérimental a été développé pour l’étude de cavités couplées pressurisées (NPCC). Le couplage entre le plénum (ou dôme) et la chambre a été étudié. Un modèle reliant les fluctuations de pression et de vitesse en sortie des injecteurs a été développé et comparés aux données d’essais. Le banc NPCC a aussi été utilisé pour acquérir plus de connaissances sur le niveau d’amortissement. Les coefficients d’amortissement ont été déterminés.La dernière partie de ce document traite du développement d’un modèle ordre réduit qui représente des mécanismes qui entretiennent et amortissent les instabilités de combustion hautes fréquences. Cette description dynamique a été incorporée dans un code de stabilité haute fréquence (STAHF). Ce code a été utilisé pour étudier un moteur à ergols liquides d’une puissance de 87 MW (le banc BKD du DLR en Allemagne) qui présente des instabilités hautes fréquences. Après le recalage de certains paramètres de contrôle, STAHF a été capable de retrouver des résultats obtenus d’essais au DLR. / This research concerns some of the issues raised by high frequency combustion instabilities in rocket engines. These instabilities are known to have detrimental effects leading, in some cases, to the destruction of the propulsion system. To avoid the appearance of such instabilities it is important to gain an understanding of the processes driving such dynamical phenomena. One has to consider the complex coupling between injection, combustion and the acoustic resonances of the system. The present work contributes to this objective by developing three items.The first deals with numerical simulations of non-reactive and reactive jets submitted to different modulation conditions to understand the interaction between jets, flames and their environment. Numerical simulations of non-reactive round jets as well as more complex flames formed by coaxial injectors operating under transcritical conditions were carried out using large eddy simulation (LES) adapted to real gas situations by making use of the AVBP-RG flow solver. Round jets were submitted to transverse velocity fluctuations. It has been found that for all amplitudes and frequencies of modulation, the modulated jet is deformed and oscillates. This behavior can be represented by a model. The coaxial flames were submitted to mass flow rate and pressure modulation. For these cases it has been found that the modulation induces variations of the global heat release rate. A mathematical relationship between the modulated parameters and the heat release rate has been proposed.The second item includes experimental investigations. For this purpose a New Pressurized Coupled Cavities (NPCC) laboratory test rig has been developed. The possible coupling between the plenum and the thrust chamber was studied. A model, linking pressure and velocity fluctuations between the plenum and the thrust chamber, has been developed. The laboratory test rig was also used to gather some knowledge on the levels of damping and the damping coefficients could be determined.The last item of this document deals with the development of a reduced order dynamical model which includes some of the driving and damping mechanisms of high frequency combustion instabilities. This dynamical description was implemented in a high frequency stability code (STAHF). This code was used to examine a 87 MW liquid rocket engine (BKD operated at DLR, Germany) exhibiting high frequency oscillations. After the adjustment of some control parameters, STAHF was able to retrieve some the features observed in experiments carried out at DLR.

This study addresses the influence of elevated pressures, fuel type, fuel flow rate and co-flow air on the flame structure and flickering behaviour of laminar oscillating diffusion flames. Photomultipliers, high speed photography and schlieren, accompanied with digital image processing techniques have been used to study the flame dynamics. Furthermore, the effects of pressure on the flame geometry and two-dimensional soot temperature distribution in a laminar stable diffusion flame have been investigated, utilising narrow band photography and two-colour pyrometry technique in the near infra-red region. This study provides a broad dataset on the diffusion (sooty) flame properties under pressures from atmospheric to 16 bar for three gaseous hydrocarbon fuels (methane, ethylene and propane) in a co-flow burner facility.It has been observed that the flame properties are very sensitive to the fuel type and flow rate at elevated pressures. The cross-sectional area of the stable flame shows an average inverse dependence on pressure to the power of n, where n was found to be 0.8±0.2 for ethylene flame, 0.5±0.1 for methane flame and 0.6±0.1 for propane flame. The height of a flame increases firstly with pressure and then decreases with further increase of pressure. It is observed that the region of stable combustion was markedly reduced as pressure was increased. An ethylene flame flickers with at least three dominant modes, each with corresponding harmonics at elevated pressures. In contrast, methane flames flicker with one dominant frequency and as many as six harmonic modes at elevated pressures. The increase in fuel flow rate was observed to increase the magnitude of oscillation. The flickering frequency, however, remains almost constant at each pressure. The dominant flickering frequency of a methane diffusion flame shows a power-law dependence on chamber pressure.It has been observed that the flame dynamics and stability are also strongly affected by the co-flow air velocity. When the co-flow velocity reached a certain value, the buoyancy driven flame oscillation was completely suppressed. The schlieren imaging has revealed that the co-flow of air is able to push the initiation point of outer toroidal vortices beyond the visible flame to create a very stable flame. The oscillation frequency was observed to increase linearly with the air co-flow rate. The soot temperature results obtained by applying the two-colour method in the near infra-red region shows that in diffusion flames the overall temperatures decrease with increasing pressure. It is shown that the rate of temperature drop is greater for a pressure increase at lower pressures in comparison with higher pressures.

This thesis aims at improving our knowledge on swirl combustors. The work presented here is based on Large Eddy Simulations (LES) coupled to an advanced combustion model: the Conditional Moment Closure (CMC). Numerical predictions have been systematically compared and validated with detailed experimental datasets. In order to analyze further the physics underlying the large numerical datasets, Proper Orthogonal Decomposition (POD) has also been used throughout the thesis. Various aspects of the aerodynamics of swirling flames are investigated, such as precession or vortex formation caused by flow oscillations, as well as various combustion aspects such as localized extinctions and flame lift-off. All the above affect flame stabilization in different ways and are explored through focused simulations. The first study investigates isothermal air flows behind an enclosed bluff body, with the incoming flow being pulsated. These flows have strong similarities to flows found in combustors experiencing self-excited oscillations and can therefore be considered as canonical problems. At high enough forcing frequencies, double ring vortices are shed from the air pipe exit. Various harmonics of the pulsating frequency are observed in the spectra and their relation with the vortex shedding is investigated through POD. The second study explores the structure of the Delft III piloted turbulent non-premixed flame. The simple configuration allows to analyze further key combustion aspects of combustors, with further insights provided on the dynamics of localized extinctions and re-ignition, as well as the pollutants emissions. The third study presents a comprehensive analysis of the aerodynamics of swirl flows based on the TECFLAM confined non-premixed S09c configuration. A periodic component inside the air inlet pipe and around the central bluff body is observed, for both the inert and reactive flows. POD shows that these flow oscillations are due to single and double helical vortices, similar to Precessing Vortex Cores (PVC), that develop inside the air inlet pipe and whose axes rotate around the burner. The combustion process is found to affect the swirl flow aerodynamics. Finally, the fourth study investigates the TECFLAM configuration again, but here attention is given to the flame lift-off evident in experiments and reproduced by the LES-CMC formulation. The stabilization process and the pollutants emission of the flame are investigated in detail.