Limit-Cycle Properties of a Rijke Tube

Abstract

Thermoacoustic instability appears when unsteady heat release is favourably coupled with acoustic pressure perturbations. The important technical applications involving thermoacoustics are combustion instability in rocket motors and low-pollutant lean flames; noisy industrial burners; pulsed combustors; and thermoacoustic engines. The simplest device for studying thermoacoustic instability is a Rijke tube. In this work, a series of experiments is carried out to determine the nonlinear behavior of the transition to instability and the excited regimes for an electrically driven Rijke tube. A hysteresis effect in the stability boundary is observed. A mathematical theory involving heat transfer, acoustics, and thermoacoustic interactions is developed to predict the transition to instability and limit-cycle properties.