Swirl burners are widely used in numerous practical applications since they are characterized by low pollutant emission and a wide operating range. Besides reliable operation, a burner must fulfill noise emission regulations, which is often a sound pressure level in dB(A) when people are affected. Therefore, the present paper evaluates the overall sound pressure level (OASPL) variation of a 15-kW liquid-fueled turbulent atmospheric swirl burner at various setups. Firstly, the combustion air flow rate was adjusted, which induced a swirl number modification due to the fixed swirl vanes. Secondly, the atomizing pressure of the plain-jet airblast atomizer was modified, which also affected the swirl number. High atomizing air jets notably increased combustion noise by intensifying the shear layer. Thirdly, a geometrical modification was performed; 0°–60° half cone angle quarls in 15° steps were installed on the lip of the baseline burner for extended flame stability. By filtering the OASPL to the V-shaped flames, a linearly decreasing trend was observed as a function of swirl number. Their derivative also has a linearly decreasing characteristic as a function of the atomizing pressure.

In order to fulfill the continuously stringent emission standards, lean premixed flames are used. However, such an operation results in an operation near the lean blowout limit which can be diagnosed by acoustic devices. During the investigation, a 15 kW lean premixing prevaporizing-type swirl burner was used. Diesel oil was utilized as fuel which was atomized by an airblast atomizer. Depending on the swirl number, straight, V-shaped, and in the transition regime both can be observed. Therefore, a bistable region separates the two regimes in which the equivalent sound pressure level was investigated and its relation to the flame shapes.

Lean swirl combustion is the leading burner concept today, used in several steadyoperating applications to ensure awide operating range and low pollutant emissions. Approaching lean blowout is highly desired by design to achieve the lowest possible NOX emission. It was shown earlier that quarls could significantly extend the operating regime of liquid-fueled swirl burners. In the present study, the accompanying acoustic noise is evaluated by continuous wavelet transformation to show the effect of various quarl geometries on lean flame blowout. However, the desired flame shape of swirl burners is V, first, and a straight flame, and then a transitory regime can be observed before the developed V-shaped flame through increasing the swirl number. If the axial thrust is excessive, blowout might occur in earlier stages. Presently, the characteristic bands before blowout were analyzed and evaluated at various quarl geometries, swirl numbers, and atomizing pressures. The latter parameter also acts as an axial thrust control to adjust the swirl number. firstly, a straight flame, then a transitory regime can be observed before the developed V-shaped flame through increasing the swirl number. If the axial thrust is excessive, blowout might occur in earlier stages. Presently, the characteristic bands before blowout were analyzed and evaluated at various quarl geometries, swirl numbers, and atomizing pressures. The latter parameter also acts as an axial thrust control to adjust the swirl number.