Effects of liquid fuel/wall interaction on thermoacoustic instabilities in swirling spray flames

Computational prediction of thermoacoustic instabilities arising in gas turbine and aero-engine combus-tors still remains a challenge especially if fuel is injected in a liquid spray form. This study shows that, in LES of such a combustor, the treatment of the liquid fuel film created on the walls of the injection system affects the mean flame weakly, but modifies the flame dynamics strongly. The configuration used for this work is the experimental setup SICCA-spray available at EM2C laboratory in Paris. First steady spray flame measurements are used to validate the LES Euler-Lagrange approach. Two modelling strate-gies for the interaction between the liquid fuel and the injector walls are tested with a negligible impact on the flame shape and structure. In the second part the same comparison is applied to another operat-ing condition where a self-sustained thermo-acoustic limit-cycle is experimentally observed. In that case resonant coupling is achieved with LES, confirming the adequacy of the approach but only when the film layer is taken into account. Indeed, contrarily to the stable configuration, the difference between the two Lagrangian boundary conditions is shown to have a major impact on the feedback mechanism leading to the thermoacoustic oscillation. (C) 2020 The Combustion Institute. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.