No abstract

It is understood that so-called “entropy waves” can contribute to combustion noise and play a role in thermoacoustic instabilities in combustion chambers. The prevalent description of entropy waves generation regards the flame front as a source of heat at rest. Such a model leads — in its simplest form — to an entropy source term that depends exclusively on the unsteady response of the heat release rate and upstream velocity perturbations. However, in the case of a perfectly premixed flame, which has a constant and homogeneous fuel / air ratio and thus constant temperature of combustion products, generation of entropy waves (i.e. temperature inhomogeneities) across the flame is not expected. The present study analyzes and resolves this inconsistency, and proposes a modified version of the quasi 1-D jump relations, which regards the flame as a moving discontinuity, instead of a source at rest. It is shown that by giving up the hypothesis of a flame at rest, the entropy source term is related upto leading order in Mach number to changes in equivalence ratio only. To supplement the analytical results, numerical simulations of a Bunsen-type 2D premixed flame are analysed, with a focus on the correlations between surface area, heat release and position of the flame on the one hand, and entropy fluctuations downstream of the flame on the other. Both perfectly premixed as well as flames with fluctuating equivalence ratio are considered.