16th Int Symp on Applications of Laser Techniques to Fluid Mechanics

Lisbon, Portugal, 09-12 July, 2012

Experimental study of aerodynamic structures in a non-reactive dodecane-air

combustor using time resolved PIV
Theodore Providakis1,2, Pierre-Edouard Bossard 1,2, Philippe Scouflaire1,2,
Sebastien Ducruix1,2, Laurent Zimmer1,2,*
1: CNRS, UPR 288 "Laboratoire dEnergetique moleculaire et macroscopique, combustion" Grande Voie des Vignes,
92295 Chatenay-Malabry
2: Ecole Centrale Paris, Grande Voie des Vignes, 92295 Chatenay-Malabry, Laboratoire EM2C - CNRS UPR 288 Ecole Centrale Paris
* correspondent author: Laurent.zimmer@ecp.fr

Abstract To reduce pollutant emissions from aeronautical combustion, staging of fuel is becoming a popular
strategy together with mixing fuel and air ahead of the combustion chamber. The staging consists in splitting
the main fuel in several parts and acting on the staging parameter as function of thermal load required to help
either the stabilization or the reduction of pollutants. However, this type of combustion may be prone to
intrinsic instabilities, like flashback, blow off or thermo-acoustic resonance. To study the dynamics of a
typical aeronautical multi-staged combustor, detailed time resolved measurements are performed for nonreacting conditions in an ambient pressure combustor. Fuel may be injected either through a pressurized
nozzle (pilot) or through multiple holes and a staging factor is defined as being the fuel injected through
the pilot divided by the overall fuel flowrate. All measurements are performed with an air mass flowrate of
53 g/s, an inlet temperature of 473K, dodecane as fuel with an overall equivalence ration of 0.6 and a staging
parameter between 20% and 60%. Time resolved Particle Image Velocimetry data as well as Mie
scattering images are obtained at a frequency of 10 kHz. Steady data show that an increase in the pilot
injection results in a longer spray, due to an initial higher momentum of droplets. It is shown that in presence
of spray injection, an aerodynamical structure is measured, while not readily detected for pure gas
conditions. Its frequency is constant regardless the staging parameter and is around 2530Hz. The strength of
this structure is increasing with a relative increase of the pilot fraction and is better characterized by Mie
scattering measurements rather than velocity measurements. Combining different cross planes and
synchronizing them with a reference signal obtained by a continuous He-Ne laser sensitive to Mie scattering
along a precise volume, the structure in three dimensions is reconstructed. This structure is a Precessing
Vortex Core type structure that is expected to play an important role for stabilizing the flame as possibly
offering an anchoring point with lower pressure. As the center of the structure is moving, it is also expected
that it damps the coupling with acoustic modes.

1. Introduction
Reducing pollutant emissions for aeronautical applications still remains a challenge. Lean premixed
combustion systems offering lower temperatures are prone to intrinsic instabilities such as potential
coupling between heat release and pressure fluctuations or to blowoff events. One possibility for
better controlling the operations is to use a staging of the fuel. Part of the fuel may be introduced
through a pilot injector, to stabilize the flame (Barbosa et al, 2009). The other part may be
introduced more homogeneously inside the combustion chamber through a multiple hole approach.
Many studies have been performed to show the dynamic behavior of gaseous burner using time
resolved data (see Boxx et al., 2010 and subsequent works) or multiple planar imaging techniques
(Shimura et al., 2011). Typical output power of those burners is of the order of 30 kW. Different
analysises have been used to understand the complex dynamics in such gaseous burners, including
phase-lock measurements or proper orthogonal decomposition approach. However, relatively
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16th Int Symp on Applications of Laser Techniques to Fluid Mechanics

Lisbon, Portugal, 09-12 July, 2012

limited information is available for liquid-fueled burners. Among those, (de la Cruz Garcia et al.,
2009) proposed a detailed measurements of droplets based on phase Doppler anemometry and time
series planar measurements to retrieve the diameter and the velocity of droplets as well as highspeed Mie scattering measurements. They operated their facility with aviation kerosene Jet-A1
injected from a pressure atomizer and with preheated air. Typical Sauter mean diameter droplets
were around 15 to 25 m. They observed a different global behavior as identical operating
conditions with a gaseous fuel. One of their main conclusions is that the spray is of importance in
the appearance of self-excited combustion instabilities. A multi-point injection device was
previously studied with gaseous fuel (Barbosa et al, 2009) and therefore, it is important to study the
effects induced by a liquid fuel. Results in reacting conditions (Providakis et al. 2011b) showed that
two frequencies were observed: one, typical of the quarter wavelength of the combustion chamber
around 300Hz and another one around 2600Hz. This second frequency is detected mainly on the
heat release (through chemiluminecence measurements) and may be due to a Precessing Vortex
Core movement. To confirm the existence of such an aerodynamical structure, non-reacting
experiments are performed using multi-plane, time resolved measurements with and without
introducing spray. In the second section, the test rig developed as well as diagnostics are described.
Third section is devoted to a steady analysis of the mean velocities for air and spray as well as the
mean position of the spray as measured by Mie scattering. Fourth section will describe the
dynamics of the flow and the structure of the PVC will be shown. Finally, conclusions as far as
dynamics of the system and possible interactions with combustion stabilization will be discussed.

2. Experimental configuration
2.1 Description of the test rig
The multipoint combustor is composed of two stages where air and liquid fuel are mixed before
entering a rectangular combustion chamber (500x150x150 mm), composed of two silica windows
for optical access and two water-cooled walls. The test bench is operated at atmospheric pressure.
Dodecane is used as fuel in the present study. Its thermodynamical properties are relatively close to
those of kerosene, while offering a good repeatability of experiments.
A schematic view of the injection device is shown in Figure 1. Inside the injection device, the
upstream (primary) stage is called the `Pilot stage'. It is composed of a pressurized nozzle for fuel
distribution and a swirler for air injection. The pressurized nozzle generates a solid cone and fuel
can be injected at a maximum flow rate of 6.3 l/h. Its flow number is equal to 1.4 l/h/bar1/2. The air
swirler is composed of 18 vanes and it is geometrically designed so that 20% of the global air rate
flows through this stage. This value has been confirmed experimentally in (Barbosa, 2008). The
downstream (secondary) stage is called the `Takeoff stage'. It is composed of a multipoint system
for the fuel and a swirler for the air. The multi-injection system is composed of 10 equally-spaced
holes (0.3 mm in diameter). The swirler is composed of 20 vanes and it has been designed so that
80% of the global air rate flows through this stage. Both swirlers are set co-rotating (but this could
be easily modified) and designed so that the swirl number S based on geometrical considerations is
close to 1 (Galley, 2006). To enhance spray vaporization, air is preheated at 473 K.
As staging is one of the main features of this type of injection system, a staging factor is defined
to quantify the relative amount of fuel injected through the primary (pilot) injector:
m fp
=
100 (1)
m fg
where m fg is the total fuel flow rate and m fp is the fuel flow rate through the primary stage. As a
consequence, will be zero in case all fuel flows through the secondary (take-off) stage and 100%
for all fuel injected through the pilot stage.
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16th Int Symp on Applications of Laser Techniques to Fluid Mechanics

Lisbon, Portugal, 09-12 July, 2012

SW
Transverse
planes
T

Air main
Fuel Main

fuel
Fuel

Air pilot

mirror
alpha
45

lambda1
= 532 nm

F2

d
F1
F1

Fuel Pilot

CC
Combustion
CC
Chamber

air
Air
x
A
Axial
plane

F2

Fuel Main

mirror
y

Air pilot

fuel

filter

Filter
filter

Filter

Air main

HS
high-speed
camera
camera
trans
(transverse)

HS
high-speed
camera
camera
axial
(axial)

SW

Figure 1 (Left) Schematic view of the injection device. Flow from left to right. (Right) Positions of the different
laser sheets and cameras for 3D reconstruction of the PVC structure

In the present paper, only one air mass flowrate will be presented (53 g/s) for clarity. Table 1 shows
the operating conditions chosen for the present study. The global air and fuel flow rates are kept
constant (constant power and global equivalence ratio), while varies from 20 to 60%, a domain
where the shape of the flame is highly influenced by the staging procedure (Zimmer et al., 2012).
For values of higher than 50% (pilot stage regimes), the flame stabilization process is controlled
by the pilot stage, leading to a compact V-flame, anchored inside the injection device. For values of
lower than 25% (take-off stage regimes), the flame is stabilized thanks to the take-off stage and
takes an M-shape. In-between, there seems to be a competition between both stages, leading to a
tulip-like shape of the flame (Providakis et al., 2011b).
Condition
OPNR
OP20
OP35
OP60

m a [g s1 ]

Q fg [l h 1 ]

53
53
53
53

0
9.4
9.4
9.4

20
35
60

Table 1 Operating conditions for the non-reactive flow analysis. g = 0.6; Tair=473K

2.2 Description of the diagnostics used

In order to investigate the dynamic properties of the flow, a series of diagnostics are used. To obtain
velocity in a plane, time resolved Particle Image Velocimetry is performed for all the four different
conditions. For condition OPNR, TiO2 particles are introduced as seeding particles whereas for
OP20, OP35 and OP60, the droplets of dodecane are studied. The laser sheet is generated by a
system consisting of two Nd:YAG lasers (Quantronix). Both lasers emit a pulse at a wavelength of
532 nm with an energy around 5 mJ and a temporal width of 120 ns. An optical system (Melles
Griot) is used to convert the laser beam into a planar light sheet 100 mm wide and 1 mm thick. Both
cavities of the laser are fired at 10 kHz, with a delay of 15 s for all cases and synchronized with a
high-speed camera (Photron Fastcam). This later is set to a frequency of 20 kHz and with an image
resolution of 5121024 in axial planes and 512512 in transverse planes. The spatial resolution is
respectively 7.2 and 5.5 pixel/mm for axial and transverse measurements and a 105 mm F/2.8
Nikon Nikkor is used with an aperture of 2.8. To obtain velocity fields from the Mie scattering
image, Dynamic Studio ( Dantec) is used with an initial interrogation window size of 128128
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16th Int Symp on Applications of Laser Techniques to Fluid Mechanics

Lisbon, Portugal, 09-12 July, 2012

and a final one of 1616 with an overlap of 50%. The positions of the camera and the plane of
measurements are given in the right side of Figure 1. One can see that for transverse position, a
mirror is used to image the planes inside the chamber. This configuration minimizes the reflections
of the laser sheet on the optical accesses compared to a situation where a Scheimpflug correction
mount would be used.
In order to reconstruct in three spatial dimensions the dynamics of the flow, a small He-Ne laser
(632nm) is used together with a photomultiplier tube. The laser was positioned so that the beam
passes at 5 mm from the injection exit and at Z = -26 mm. The vertical position of the beam was
carefully chosen since it may influence the results. The beam must imperatively pass through one
side of the flow only to detect a possible asymmetric behavior. The signal is collected through a
Hamamatsu photomultiplier tube equipped with a filter (f = 630 nm 10 nm). It is assumed that the
signal gives an qualitative information on the fluctuations of the flows flux surface and enables
reconstructing the three dimensional dynamics of the flow.

3. Steady Results
Before describing the dynamical behavior of the spray, it is important to have a knowledge of the
mean characteristics of the flow. From the measured velocities, three regions can be distinguished
in the flow. One has two recirculation zones IRZ and ORZ (inner and outer respectively) as well as
the region of the main flow that lies in between the two other zones. The contour lines of the zero
velocities have been added in Figure 2 to enhance their positions.

Figure 2 Axial and vertical mean velocities of the aerodynamic flow (OPNR). A contour of the axial zero velocity
(black lines) has been added to the mean axial velocity field (left)

In order to characterize the flow of the droplets, it is important first to delimit the region where
droplets are present. For that purpose, the Mie scattering images obtained for TR-PIV are processed
using images of only one cavity (10kHz). As Mie scattering may be influenced by reflections of
laser, the spray envelope is determined based on the fluctuations (root mean square based)
measured in the Mie scattering intensity. Results presented in Figure 3 are obtained using 8,000
instantaneous images for the different conditions. They have been normalized by the maximum
fluctuations observed for OP20 and a threshold value of 0.2 has been applied to remove spurious
noise. Globally, they indicate that, independently from the staging value, the resulting spray has a
hollow cone shape. This is due to the presence of the inner and outer recirculation zones (IRZ and
ORZ) in the combustion chamber, which tend to confine all fuel droplets in the conical penetration
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16th Int Symp on Applications of Laser Techniques to Fluid Mechanics

Lisbon, Portugal, 09-12 July, 2012

region of the fresh gases as for the aerodynamic flow described earlier. The absence of strong signal
in the IRZ and ORZ regions suggest that all fuel droplets have almost completely evaporated. The
absolute intensity of Mie scattering is representing mainly the diameters of the droplets. A detailed
study (Providakis, 2012) shows that Mie scattering intensity follows well a d-square law of
evaporation. One can also notice that the OP60 case leads to a longer spray that furthermore
presents a higher angle as compared to other cases. Detailed PDA measurements (Providakis et al.
2011a) revealed that typical Sauter mean diameter was encompassed between 10 to 20 m for OP20
and about 15 to 25 m for the OP60 case close to the exit (15mm). The mean Sauter diameter tends
to increase with the streamwise direction, as small droplets evaporated and SMD values were
between 15 to 25 m for OP20 and 18 to 25 m for OP60 at a streamwise position of X=20mm.
The difference in SMD is likely due to the residence time of droplets in the hot air. As the staging
parameter is increased, the velocities of the droplets from the pilot stage are increased. Therefore,
even though initial distributions may be smaller at large , due to limited residence time, the
droplets encountered in the chamber have a higher SMD values. Combining both high SMD and
high momentum, droplets are therefore found for longer streamwise positions as compared to
smaller staging parameter.

Figure 3 Average fluctuation of the droplets Mie intensity from the axial measurements for the non-reactive
flow. Intensities have been normalized by the maximum value of OP20 . The threshold value for the spray
detection has been chosen at IRMS = 0.2 .

The velocities obtained by applying standard PIV algorithms to Mie scattering of droplets with
various sizes are biased by the diameter to the square as the signal of Mie scattering depends on the
surface of droplets (Zimmer et al, 2003). Results presented in Figure 4 show a slightly different
behavior as compared to OPNR. For instance, neither the IRZ nor the ORZ can be measured. This
is due to the fact that droplets evaporated before being entrapped in those recirculation zones. One
also notices more straight directions for axial velocities and alternate regions of positive and
negative vertical velocities as function of the streamwise distance. One still sees that there is an
opposite velocity between lower and upper part of the flow.

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16th Int Symp on Applications of Laser Techniques to Fluid Mechanics

Lisbon, Portugal, 09-12 July, 2012

Figure 4 Axial (left) and vertical (right) mean velocities of droplets for OP60 condition.

Velocity fields for OP20 and OP35 are very similar to OP60 with however slightly lower axial
velocities. This is due to the fact that an increase in leads to a higher initial momentum of the
droplets from the pilot. This higher momentum may disturb the airflow by inducing a local
acceleration, which results later on higher velocities.
Using velocities obtained in the different planes, it is possible to measure the actual swirl number S.
The axial measurements were performed at the center of the chamber and the horizontal velocity in
this precise location corresponds exactly to the azimuthal velocity, u . Its definition is
G
S=
(2)
R Gx'
with G and Gx' the axial flux and the thrust respectively, defined as

G =
G =
'
x

u u2r dr (3)

0
R

u 2rdr (4)
2

As the swirl number highly depends on the limit of integration, it is decided to take R as the vertical
position from which the axial velocity no longer changes (close to the ORZ). Measurements for the
different conditions show that S is of the order of 0.3 in the combustion chamber. Even though the
swirlers were designed to have S close to unity, in the chamber, its value drops to one third. This
behavior has also been seen on the numerical simulations performed in parallel. The swirl number
is not really influenced by the injection of droplets and one see a limited effect of the operating
conditions on its value.

4. Dynamic results
The following section focuses in analyzing the fluctuating behavior of the flow with and without
fuel injection. As reported in the diagnostics section, a small He-Ne laser was used close to the exit
to measure surface fluxes. For single-phase flow, as uniform seeding is used, a difference in surface
flux may be the result of regions with lower or higher pressure. In the presence of droplets, changes
in surface fluxes may be either the consequence of smaller/bigger droplets and lower/higher
density. Performing a power spectral analysis for all the different conditions show that a frequency
around 2550Hz is obtained regardless of the operating conditions of two-phase flow (OP20, OP35
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16th Int Symp on Applications of Laser Techniques to Fluid Mechanics

Lisbon, Portugal, 09-12 July, 2012

and OP60). A typical PSD is shown in Figure 5. One can see that the width of the peak is not
negligible. A detailed analysis based on wavelet decompositions (Providakis, 2012) show that the
fluctuations of the frequency are decreasing with the staging parameter. Increasing the amount of
fuel injected through the pilot tends to narrow the frequency and enhance the peak. This tends to
emphasize the role played by the inner swirler for the creation of such a periodic structure.

Figure 5 Power Spectral Density of the He-Ne for OP60 case

To check whether this structure is a Precessing Vortex Core type, it is necessary to use transverse
planar information. Furthermore, it is necessary to have some phase information to describe the
dynamics of this structure. A dual approach has been used. First, a phase averaged procedure based
on the He-Ne results have been used. The angular position of each image was determined locally by
looking at the Hilbert transform of the He-Ne laser. This is important as the frequency of the
structure is not absolutely fixed and has some temporal variations. Another method was to use the
temporally resolved data and apply a Dynamic Mode Decomposition procedure (see Schmid, 2010)
on those data. Results were found similar regardless the method used and in the following the
standard phase average procedure is used. DMD is sensitive to the number of images used, as well
as to the spatial resolution decided. With a phase average procedure, the spatial resolution is kept
constant and all data acquired are used, leading to well-converged statistics. Bins of 9 are used,
leading to typical 400 samples per bin and 20 bins to describe a mean cycle.
A typical averaged image computed for one class is presented in Figure 6. The relative differences
with respect to the overall averaged images are computed and normalized by the highest value. Blue
regions represent therefore positions for which the phase averaged image present a deficit of Mie
scattering as compared to the mean one. On the other hand, regions in red mean that Mie scattering
is higher. One can notice that the two regions slightly do represent each half a turn and tend to go
form the inner to the outer part of the spray. This will have a strong influence on combustion as
zones with different mixture fraction will be created through this process. As Mie scattering has
been shown to represent the diameter of the droplets, those alternative regions with positive and
negative variations of Mie scattering will not result only in different mixture fraction but also with
different flame position. As evaporation is linked to the square of the diameter, higher diameter will
mean longer evaporation time and therefore the combustion will be delayed in time (hence space).
Making a zoom in the center of the chamber and adjusting the levels to enhance the relative
variations in this region only reveals that droplets are still present in the center of the chamber.
Levels detected are very small as compared to the main flow due to evaporation. However, the two
regions of both decrease and increase of Mie scattering images are clearly seen in figure 6b. This
inner part has the same structure as the outer part. Both regions represent about 180 deg, describing
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16th Int Symp on Applications of Laser Techniques to Fluid Mechanics

Lisbon, Portugal, 09-12 July, 2012

more a spiral and going outwards. As both structures go in the same direction, it is expected that the
droplets in the inner part are not recirculating droplets but more droplets that were ejected from the
main stream and therefore still rotating in the same direction. Recirculating droplets may not persist
in space so long due to complete evaporation.

Figure 6 (left) Region of the core of the Precessing Vortex. (right) Averaged Mie fluctuations at a given phase of
the PVC cycle. Colors have been adjusted to visualize the structure. X=10mm. The frequency of the aerodynamic
structure is 2530 Hz.

The overall cycle variations of these regions may be computed and for clarity purpose, only four
phases are represented in figure 7. One can see that both structure turn in the same clockwise
direction and that the extrema of each region do have circular variations with respect to the center
of the chamber. It is possible to track the beginning of the positive region and this point would
describe a circle with typical diameter of about 4 mm.

Figure 7 Fluctuations of the phase averaged Mie scattering intensity for four phases of the PVC cycle in the core
of the Precessing Vortex. X=10mm and the frequency of the aerodynamic structure is 2530 Hz.

Finally, combining all the different transverse planes and synchronizing them with the signal of the
scattered light of the He-Ne laser, it is possible to reconstruct the three-dimensional structure of the
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16th Int Symp on Applications of Laser Techniques to Fluid Mechanics

Lisbon, Portugal, 09-12 July, 2012

PVC. The helical structure is reconstructed every 0.5mm using a cubic interpolation between the
successive measurements planes. Results presented in Figure 8 are obtained by choosing a level of
fluctuations of the Mie scattering intensity. The iso-surface of fluctuations is colored by the
streamwise direction and corresponds to a positive value of the Mie fluctuation. This picture gives
the exact nature of the structure that is found in non-reacting conditions in this staged injector.

Figure 8 Iso-surface of a positive value of the Mie fluctuations for four phases of the PVC cycle and for OP60.
The frequency of the aerodynamic structure is 2530 Hz.

Measurements have also shown that this frequency was still detected even in presence of flame
(Zimmer et al, 2012). It can be anticipated that it plays an important role for stabilizing the flame to
the pilot. On the other hand, this may lead to transverse coupling between adjacent burners and this
may be analyzed in more realistic geometries using several burners.

5. Conclusions
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16th Int Symp on Applications of Laser Techniques to Fluid Mechanics

Lisbon, Portugal, 09-12 July, 2012

In the present paper, detailed multi-planar measurements were performed for non-reacting
conditions in a multipoint injection system. The frequency analysis showed that a peak was
observed around 2530Hz and that this peak can be linked to an aerodynamical structure with an
intense signal in the center of the injector. Using a reference signal obtained by means of a He-Ne
laser, the three dimensional nature of the structure could be revealed by Mie scattering
measurements of dodecane droplets. Its presence is still detected 30 mm inside the combustion
chamber and its strength is a function of the staging parameter. This structure is expected to play an
important role for stabilizing the flame as possibly offering an anchoring point with lower pressure.
As the center of the structure is moving, it is also expected that it damps the coupling with acoustic
modes by changing the position of droplets and hence heat release.

6. Acknowledgements
This work is supported by Ple ASTECH and funded by Conseil Rgional d'Ile-de-France, in the
framework of the INCA (Initiative en Combustion Avance) initiative. The authors would like to
thank the technical staff at the EM2C laboratory for their help in designing and mounting the
experimental setup.

7. References
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Paris.
Barbosa S, Scouflaire P, Ducruix S (2009) Time resolved flowfield, flame structure and acoustic
characterization of a staged multi-injection burner, Proceedings of the Combustion Institute
32:2965-2972.
Boxx I, Arndt C, Carter C, Meier W (2010), Experiments in Fluids 49:865-882.
de la Cruz Garcia M, Mastorakos E, Dowling AP (2009) Investigations on the self-excited
oscillations in a kerosene spray flame, Combustion and Flame, 156:374-384
Galley, D. (2006). Etude de la stabilisation de flammes turbulentes prvaporises prmlanges
pauvres. Ph. D. thesis, Ecole Centrale Paris
Providakis T, Zimmer L, Scouflaire P, Ducruix S (2011a) Effect of fuel distribution on spray
dynamics in a two-staged multi-injection burner, Proceedings of ASME Turbo Expo 2011: Power
for Land, Sea and Air, GT2011-46519, June 6-10, Vancouver, Canada
Providakis T, Zimmer L, Scouflaire P, Ducruix S (2011b) Characterization of the coherent
structures in swirling flames stabilized in a two-staged multi-injection burner: influence of the
staging factor, 3rd INCA colloquim, November 17-18, Toulouse, France
Providakis T (2012) Etude de la dynamique de flamme swirl dans un injecteur diphasique
multipoints tag Ph.D. thesis, Ecole Centrale Paris.
Shimura M, Ueda T, Choi G-M, Tanahashi M, Miyauchi T (2011) Simultaneous dual-plane CH
PLIF, single-plane OH PLIF and dual-plane stereoscopic PIV measurements in methane-air
turbulent premixed flames Proceedings of the Combustion Institute 33:775-782
Schmid PJ (2010) Dynamic mode decomposition of numerical and exprimental data. Experiments
in Fluids 656, 528.
Zimmer L, Domann R, Hardalupas Y, Ikeda Y (2003) Simultaneous LIF and MIE scattering
measurements for branch-like spray cluster in industrial oil burner, AIAA journal, 41 (11) 21702178
Zimmer L, Providakis T, Scouflaire P, Ducruix S (2012) Detailed Laser based investigations of the
dynamic of spray combustion inside a multipoint injection system, ICLASS 2012, 12th Triennial
International Conference on Liquid Atomization and Spray Systems, Heidelberg, Germany,
September 2-6, 2012.
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