Download or read book Experimental and Numerical Investigation of the Influence of Multiple Burner Arrangements on Combustion Instabilities in Turbulent Swirl Stabilized Flames written by Christian Kraus and published by . This book was released on 2014 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Stabilization and Dynamic of Premixed Swirling Flames written by Paul Palies and published by Academic Press. This book was released on 2020-07-03 with total page 402 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Stabilization and Dynamic of Premixed Swirling Flames: Prevaporized, Stratified, Partially, and Fully Premixed Regimes focuses on swirling flames in various premixed modes (stratified, partially, fully, prevaporized) for the combustor, and development and design of current and future swirl-stabilized combustion systems. This includes predicting capabilities, modeling of turbulent combustion, liquid fuel modeling, and a complete overview of stabilization of these flames in aeroengines. The book also discusses the effects of the operating envelope on upstream fresh gases and the subsequent impact of flame speed, combustion, and mixing, the theoretical framework for flame stabilization, and fully lean premixed injector design. Specific attention is paid to ground gas turbine applications, and a comprehensive review of stabilization mechanisms for premixed, partially-premixed, and stratified premixed flames. The last chapter covers the design of a fully premixed injector for future jet engine applications. Features a complete view of the challenges at the intersection of swirling flame combustors, their requirements, and the physics of fluids at work Addresses the challenges of turbulent combustion modeling with numerical simulations Includes the presentation of the very latest numerical results and analyses of flashback, lean blowout, and combustion instabilities Covers the design of a fully premixed injector for future jet engine applications

Download or read book Large Eddy Simulations of Premixed Turbulent Flame Dynamics written by Gaurav Kewlani and published by . This book was released on 2014 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: High efficiency, low emissions and stable operation over a wide range of conditions are some of the key requirements of modem-day combustors. To achieve these objectives, lean premixed flames are generally preferred as they achieve efficient and clean combustion. A drawback of lean premixed combustion, however, is that the flames are more prone to dynamics. The unsteady release of sensible heat and flow dilatation in combustion processes create pressure fluctuations which, particularly in premixed flames, can couple with the acoustics of the combustion system. This acoustic coupling creates a feedback loop with the heat release that can lead to severe thermoacoustic instabilities that can damage the combustor. Understanding these dynamics, predicting their onset and proposing passive and active control strategies are critical to large-scale implementation. For the numerical study of such systems, large eddy simulation (LES) techniques with appropriate combustion models and reaction mechanisms are highly appropriate. These approaches balance the computational complexity and predictive accuracy. This work, therefore, aims to explore the applicability of these methods to the study of premixed wake stabilized flames. Specifically, finite rate chemistry LES models that can effectively capture the interaction between different turbulent scales and the combustion fronts have been implemented, and applied for the analysis of premixed turbulent flame dynamics in laboratory-scale combustor configurations. Firstly, the artificial flame thickening approach, along with an appropriate reduced chemistry mechanism, is utilized for modeling turbulence-combustion interactions at small scales. A novel dynamic formulation is proposed that explicitly incorporates the influence of strain on flame wrinkling by solving a transport equation for the latter rather than using local-equilibrium-based algebraic models. Additionally, a multiple-step combustion chemistry mechanism is used for the simulations. Secondly, the presumed-PDF approach, coupled with the flamelet generated manifold (FGM) technique, is also implemented for modeling turbulence-combustion interactions. The proposed formulation explicitly incorporates the influence of strain via the scalar dissipation rate and can result in more accurate predictions especially for highly unsteady flame configurations. Specifically, the dissipation rate is incorporated as an additional coordinate to presume the PDF and strained flamelets are utilized to generate the chemistry databases. These LES solvers have been developed and applied for the analysis of reacting flows in several combustor configurations, i.e. triangular bluff body in a rectangular channel, backward facing step configuration, axi-symmetric bluff body in cylindrical chamber, and cylindrical sudden expansion with swirl, and their performance has been be validated against experimental observations. Subsequently, the impact of the equivalence ratio variation on flame-flow dynamics is studied for the swirl configuration using the experimental PIV data as well as the numerical LES code, following which dynamic mode decomposition of the flow field is performed. It is observed that increasing the equivalence ratio can appreciably influence the dominant flow features in the wake region, including the size and shape of the recirculation zone(s), as well as the flame dynamics. Specifically, varying the heat loading results in altering the dominant flame stabilization mechanism, thereby causing transitions across distinct- flame configurations, while also modifying the inner recirculation zone topology significantly. Additionally, the LES framework has also been applied to gain an insight into the combustion dynamics phenomena for the backward-facing step configuration. Apart from evaluating the influence of equivalence ratio on the combustion process for stable flames, the flame-flow interactions in acoustically forced scenarios are also analyzed using LES and dynamic mode decomposition (DMD). Specifically, numerical simulations are performed corresponding to a selfexcited combustion instability configuration as observed in the experiments, and it is observed that LES is able to suitably capture the flame dynamics. These insights highlight the effect of heat release variation on flame-flow interactions in wall-confined combustor configurations, which can significantly impact combustion stability in acoustically-coupled systems. The fidelity of the solvers in predicting the system response to variation in heat loading and to acoustic forcing suggests that the LES framework can be suitably applied for the analysis of flame dynamics as well as to understand the fundamental mechanisms responsible for combustion instability. KEY WORDS - large eddy simulation, LES, wake stabilized flame, turbulent premixed combustion, combustion modeling, artificially thickened flame model, triangular bluff body, backward facing step combustor, presumed-PDF model, flamelet generated manifold, axi-symmetric bluff body, cylindrical swirl combustor, particle image velocimetry, dynamic mode decomposition, combustion instability, forced response.

Download or read book Experiments and Numerical Simulations of Diluted Spray Turbulent Combustion written by Bart Merci and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2011-06-20 with total page 180 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book reflects the outcome of the 1st International Workshop on Turbulent Spray Combustion held in 2009 in Corsica (France). The focus is on reporting the progress of experimental and numerical techniques in two-phase flows, with emphasis on spray combustion. The motivation for studies in this area is that knowledge of the dominant phenomena and their interactions in such flow systems is essential for the development of predictive models and their use in combustor and gas turbine design. This necessitates the development of accurate experimental methods and numerical modelling techniques. The workshop aimed at providing an opportunity for experts and young researchers to present the state-of-the-art, discuss new developments or techniques and exchange ideas in the areas of experimentations, modelling and simulation of reactive multiphase flows. The first two papers reflect the contents of the invited lectures, given by experts in the field of turbulent spray combustion. The first concerns computational issues, while the second deals with experiments. These lectures initiated very interesting and interactive discussions among the researchers, further pursued in contributed poster presentations. Contributions 3 and 4 focus on some aspects of the impact of the interaction between fuel evaporation and combustion on spray combustion in the context of gas turbines, while the final article deals with the interaction between evaporation and turbulence.

Download or read book Turbulent Flame Microstructure Dynamics and Thermoacoustic Instability in Swirl stabilized Premixed Combustion written by Zachary Alexander LaBry and published by . This book was released on 2015 with total page 220 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of the most difficult challenges facing the development of modern gas turbines-for power generation, and propulsion-is the mitigation of dynamic instabilities in the presence of efficiency and emissions constraints. Dynamic instabilities-self-excited, self-sustaining oscillations which link the combustor acoustics to the combustion process-can result in significant levels of thermal and mechanical stress on combustion systems, leading to reduced operational lifetime, potentially dangerous failure modes, and significant deviations from the desired operating conditions. Due to the complexity of the problem, with the relevant time and length scales of the system--from the chemistry to the acoustics-spanning several orders of magnitude, even sophisticated numerical techniques have been severely limited in their ability to make reliable predictions, leaving the task of finding and eliminating modes of instability to a lengthy and expensive trial-and-error process. Lean-premixed combustion, one of the leading technologies for low emission combustors, is particularly susceptible to these types of instabilities. The sealed systems that are necessary to maintain a reaction in a lean mixture do not attenuate acoustics well, which often results in high-amplitude pressure fluctuations. In this thesis, we focus on developing a better predictive framework for the onset of combustion instabilities in a swirl-stabilized, lean-premixed combustor. We correlate the self-excited acoustic behavior with quantifiable system properties that can be generalized across different fuel blends. This work is predicated on the idea that self-excited combustion instability arises from the selective amplification of the noise inherent in a turbulent combustion system, and that the frequency-based response of the flame is a function of the flame geometry. In the first part of the thesis, we focus on the flame geometry, identifying several discrete transitions that take place in the swirl-stabilized flame as we adjust the equivalence ratio. By comparing the transitions across several CH4/H2 fuel blends, and using statistical techniques to interrogate the global effect of the small-scale flow-flame interactions, we find that the extinction strain rate-the flow-driven rate of change in flame surface area at which the chemistry is no longer -sufficiently fast to maintain the reaction-is directly linked to the flame transitions. The swirl-stabilized flow features several critical regions with large and unsteady velocity derivatives, particularly, a pair of shear layers that divide the incoming flow of reactants from an inner and an outer recirculation zone. As the extinction strain rate increases with increasing equivalence ratio, the flame transitions through these critical regions, manifesting as discrete changes in the flame geometry. In the second part, we address the correlation between self-excited instability and the forced acoustic response. By modifying the pressure boundary conditions, we decouple the flame from the acoustics over a domain of interest (defined by a range of equivalence ratios that correspond to the onset of dynamic instability in the coupled system). We then apply external acoustic forcing at a single frequency to ascertain the response of the flame to each particular forcing frequency by means of a flame transfer function. This enables us to consider the frequency-by-frequency response of the flame to its own internally generated noise. We show that the onset of instability is well-predicted by the overlap of the natural acoustic frequencies of the combustor (predicted using a non-linear flame response model) with those frequencies for which the phase of the flame transfer function satisfies the well-known Rayleigh criterion, which is a necessary condition for the presence of self-excited combustion instability. By examining both the forced response and the self-excited instability across several different fuel blends, we go on to show that both behaviors correlate well with the flame geometry, which we have already shown to be dictated by the extinction strain rate of the particular fuel blend. We go on to collapse both sets of data on the strained flame consumption speed taken at the limit of the extinction strain rate, and in doing so, present a framework for predicting the operating conditions under which the combustor in the coupled configuration will go unstable based on measurements and correlations from the uncoupled configuration. Furthermore by taking the consumption speed at the extinction limit, we are correlating the geometry and dynamics with a parameter that is solely a function of mixture properties. This provides the basis for a framework for predicting instability from properties that are more readily measured or simulated, and provides and explicit means of converting these results to different fuel mixtures.

Download or read book Turbulent Premixed Flames written by Nedunchezhian Swaminathan and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2011-04-25 with total page 447 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A work on turbulent premixed combustion is important because of increased concern about the environmental impact of combustion and the search for new combustion concepts and technologies. An improved understanding of lean fuel turbulent premixed flames must play a central role in the fundamental science of these new concepts. Lean premixed flames have the potential to offer ultra-low emission levels, but they are notoriously susceptible to combustion oscillations. Thus, sophisticated control measures are inevitably required. The editors' intent is to set out the modeling aspects in the field of turbulent premixed combustion. Good progress has been made on this topic, and this cohesive volume contains contributions from international experts on various subtopics of the lean premixed flame problem.

Download or read book Scientific and Technical Aerospace Reports written by and published by . This book was released on 1991 with total page 1460 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Lists citations with abstracts for aerospace related reports obtained from world wide sources and announces documents that have recently been entered into the NASA Scientific and Technical Information Database.

Download or read book Dynamics of Interacting Turbulent Flames written by Ankit Tyagi and published by . This book was released on 2019 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This dissertation investigates the physics of interactions between turbulent premixed flames. It is known that multiple flame configurations provide better stability characteristics compared to a large single-flame. However, the advantages of multiple flames are limited by flame proximity as flame-flame interactions tend to reduce the burning efficiency of the reactant gases. Previous studies have shown that interactions between multiple flames directly impact the flame structure and its propagation, resulting in reduced burning efficiency. Previous experimental studies of interacting flames addressed flame-flame interactions investigating their effects on combustor stability and efficiency from a global perspective. However, the local flame-flame interaction physics was not addressed comprehensively, in part because these studies were limited to specific flow and flame configurations. In particular, these studies focused on swirling flames in bluff-body configurations typical of modern combustor geometries. Furthermore, these studies lacked flowfield measurements and were limited to flame structure and heat release rate measurements due to the complex nature of the experimental configurations. Much of the work to date on understanding the local physics of interactions comes from direct numerical simulations (DNS), but these studies treated idealized configurations of limited practical utility.To bridge these two gaps, an experimental investigation of flame-flame interactions was performed using a dual-burner rig, composed of two flames, built to facilitate precise variations in flame spacing. This rig was designed to operate in different configurations. These facilitated the focus on local interaction physics. In particular, the rig was built to study interacting V-flames and Bunsen flames. Moreover, the design of the dual-burners permitted conducting studies of nonreacting flow interactions with flames to better understand local physics of the flame. Direct flame and flow measurements were performed to characterize the mutual interaction of flame and the local flowfield. In particular, flame structure and flow were characterized using synchronized OH-planar laser-induced fluorescence (OH-PLIF) and stereoscopic-particle image velocimetry (s-PIV). These measurements were performed at a sampling rate of 10 kHz to obtain converged statistics on flame-flame interactions. A novel image processing technique was implemented for robust detection and characterization of flame-flame interaction events from OH-PLIF images.Using this experimental approach, the following studies were conducted: i) effects of flame spacing on flame structure of interacting V-flames, ii) effects of multiple flames on frequency, topology, and orientation of local flame-flame interactions, iii) effects of high mean-shear flow on flame-flame interactions, and iv) effects of pocket formation on flame dynamics. In the first study, flame spacing variations in V-flames were found to directly impact flame attachment. For smaller flame spacings, recirculation of hot combustion products near the bluff-bodies facilitated a secondary flame branch attachment in the shear layers in the interaction regions. For larger flame spacing, the secondary attachment became intermittent, indicating that closer flame spacing resulted in better attachment and stability characteristics for these flames. In the second study, the presence of adjacent flames was found to directly impact the frequencies of flame-flame interaction events. Dual-flames showed lower reactant-side interactions rates and higher product-side interactions rates when compared with single-flames. For dual-flames, comparisons between interaction orientation and local strain rate orientation showed that compressive forces led to flame front merging or pinch-off. The third study, which focused on how mean shear affects the local flame dynamics, found that high-mean shear flows entrained the flame away from the center of the burner. This entrainment directly reduced interaction event frequencies along the flame branch closest to the high mean-shear flow, while interaction event frequency in the other branch increased. Finally, flame pocket formation was investigated and results showed that a majority of the reactant pockets burned-out, while a majority of the product pockets merged with the flame surface. These results suggested that pocket behavior in turbulent flames can change local flame dynamics and it is important to capture these effects to accurately predict flame behavior. Additionally, limitations of planar high-speed imaging techniques were explored and a statistical framework, using probabilistic models, was presented in the context of reactant pocket propagation. The outcome of this work provided improved uncertainty estimation for planar measurements in three-dimensional flows.This experimental investigation provided deeper insights into the local physics of flame-flame interactions, in practical configurations, using detailed flame and flow measurements. The presence of adjacent flames influenced the attachment characteristics and local flame structure that directly impacted the stability of these multiple flame configurations. Local compressive forces facilitated the occurrence of these events, highlighting the importance of changes to the flowfield due to adjacent flames. Pocket formation, which directly affected reactant gas burning efficiency, was found to occur frequently. Taken together, these results provided comprehensive insights into the effects of flame-flame interactions that enhance our understanding of the nature of interacting flames.

Download or read book Experimental and Numerical Investigation of Turbulent Diffusion Flames in a Laboratory Combustor with a Slot Burner written by and published by . This book was released on 2016 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Coarse Grained Simulation and Turbulent Mixing written by Fenando F. Grinstein and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2016-06-30 with total page 481 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Reviews our current understanding of the subject. For graduate students and researchers in computational fluid dynamics and turbulence.

Download or read book Numerical Simulations of Turbulent Combustion written by Andrei Lipatnikov and published by Mdpi AG. This book was released on 2020-07 with total page 142 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Turbulent burning of gaseous fuels is widely used for energy conversion in stationary power generation, e.g., gas turbines, land transportation, piston engines, and aviation, and aero-engine afterburners. Nevertheless, our fundamental understanding of turbulent combustion is still limited, because it is a highly non-linear and multiscale process that involves various local phenomena and thousands (e.g., for gasoline-air mixtures) of chemical reactions between hundreds of species, including several reactions that control emissions from flames. Therefore, there is a strong need for elaborating high fidelity, advanced numerical models, and methods that will catch the governing physical mechanisms of flame-turbulence interaction and, consequently, will make turbulent combustion computations an efficient predictive tool for applied research and, in particular, for development of a new generation of ultra-clean and highly efficient internal combustion engines that will allow society to properly respond to current environmental and efficiency challenges. Accordingly, papers published in this Special Issue (i) contribute to our fundamental understanding of flame-turbulence interaction by analyzing results of unsteady multi-dimensional numerical simulations and (ii) develop and validate high-fidelity models and efficient numerical methods for computational fluid Dynamics research into turbulent combustion in laboratory burners and engines.

Download or read book Fundamentals of Turbulent and Multiphase Combustion written by Kenneth Kuan-yun Kuo and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2012-07-03 with total page 914 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Detailed coverage of advanced combustion topics from the author of Principles of combustion, Second Edition Turbulence, turbulent combustion, and multiphase reacting flows have become major research topics in recent decades due to their application across diverse fields, including energy, environment, propulsion, transportation, industrial safety, and nanotechnology. Most of the knowledge accumulated from this research has never been published in book form—until now. Fundamentals of Turbulent and Multiphase Combustion presents up-to-date, integrated coverage of the fundamentals of turbulence, combustion, and multiphase phenomena along with useful experimental techniques, including non-intrusive, laser-based measurement techniques, providing a firm background in both contemporary and classical approaches. Beginning with two full chapters on laminar premixed and non-premixed flames, this book takes a multiphase approach, beginning with more common topics and moving on to higher-level applications. In addition, Fundamentals of Turbulent and Multiphase Combustion: Addresses seven basic topical areas in combustion and multiphase flows, including laminar premixed and non-premixed flames, theory of turbulence, turbulent premixed and non-premixed flames, and multiphase flows Covers spray atomization and combustion, solid-propellant combustion, homogeneous propellants, nitramines, reacting boundary-layer flows, single energetic particle combustion, and granular bed combustion Provides experimental setups and results whenever appropriate Supported with a large number of examples and problems as well as a solutions manual, Fundamentals of Turbulent and Multiphase Combustion is an important resource for professional engineers and researchers as well as graduate students in mechanical, chemical, and aerospace engineering.

Download or read book International Aerospace Abstracts written by and published by . This book was released on 1999 with total page 974 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Combustion Instabilities in Gas Turbine Engines written by Timothy C. Lieuwen and published by AIAA (American Institute of Aeronautics & Astronautics). This book was released on 2005 with total page 688 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book offers gas turbine users and manufacturers a valuable resource to help them sort through issues associated with combustion instabilities. In the last ten years, substantial efforts have been made in the industrial, governmental, and academic communities to understand the unique issues associated with combustion instabilities in low-emission gas turbines. The objective of this book is to compile these results into a series of chapters that address the various facets of the problem. The Case Studies section speaks to specific manufacturer and user experiences with combustion instabilities in the development stage and in fielded turbine engines. The book then goes on to examine The Fundamental Mechanisms, The Combustor Modeling, and Control Approaches.

Download or read book An Experimental Study of Combustion Instability in Swirl stabilized Burner furnace Systems written by Victor Manuel Rodriguez Martinez and published by . This book was released on 2003 with total page 564 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Impact of Fuel and Oxidizer Composition on Premixed Flame Stabilization in Turbulent Swirling Flows written by Soufien Taamallah and published by . This book was released on 2016 with total page 214 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The world relies on fossil fuels as its main energy source (86.7% in 1973, 81.7% in 2012). Several factors including the abundance of resources and the existing infrastructure suggest that this is likely to continue in the near future (potentially 75% in 2040). Meanwhile climate change continues to be a pressing concern that calls for the development of low CO2 energy systems. Among the most promising approaches are pre-combustion capture technologies, e.g., coal gasification and natural gas reforming that produce hydrogen-rich fuels. Another approach is oxy-combustion in which air is replaced by a mixture of O2/CO2/H2O as the oxidizer stream. However, modern gas turbines have been optimized to operate on methane-air combustion and several challenges, notably thermo-acoustic instability, arise when using other fuels or oxidizers because of their different thermochemical and transport properties. While these phenomena constitute a major challenge under conventional operations, using hydrogen-rich fuels or CO2-rich oxidizer exacerbates the problem by modifying the combustor stability map in ways that are not well understood. In this thesis, we identify combustion modes most prone to dynamics, predict the onset of thermo-acoustic instability over a wide range of fuel and oxidizer compositions, and define parameters that can scale the data. To this end, a combination of experimental and numerical tools were deployed. We carried out a series of experiments in an optically accessible laboratory-scale swirl-stabilized combustor typical of those found in modern gas turbines, using high-speed chemiluminescence to examine the flame macrostructure; high-speed Particle Image Velocimetry and OH Planar Laser Induced Fluorescence to probe the flow and flame microstructure. Numerical simulations were used to complement experiments and examine the complex three-dimensional two-way interaction between the flame and the turbulent swirling flow. Experimental data were used to construct the stability maps for different CH4-H2 mixtures and analyze the dynamic flame macrostructures and their transitions. A comparison with acoustically uncoupled combustion shows that the onset of thermo-acoustic instability is concomitant with a specific transition associated with the intermittent appearance of the flame in the outer recirculation zone (ORZ) and stabilization along the outer shear layer (forming between the swirling jet and the ORZ, as revealed by the PIV-PLIF data). The sudden onset of large amplitude limit cycle oscillations and the observed hysteresis suggest the existence of a sub-critical Hopf bifurcation typically characterized by a bistable or "triggering" zone; the flame intermittency in the ORZ can potentially provide the disturbance required to trigger these oscillations. Using a dual-camera method to track chemiluminescence in space and time, this flame transition was found to originate from a reacting kernel that detaches from the inner shear layer flame (forming between the jet and the vortex breakdown zone), reaching the ORZ and spinning at a specific frequency; its characteristic Strouhal number is independent of the Reynolds number and the fuel/oxidizer, only a function of the swirl strength. We propose a new Karlovitz number based criterion that defines the transition on a flow time - flame time space, the former being the inverse of the spinning frequency and the latter being the flame extinction strain rate. According to this scaling, the flame survives in the ORZ if and when it can overcome the region's bulk strain rate. This criterion is valid over a wide range of operating, fuel and oxidizer composition, covering a wide range of fast to slow chemistry scenarios. Given the role of this flame transition in triggering the instability, the same criterion is applicable to predicting the onset of thermo-acoustics. The interaction of the turbulent swirling flow with the flame is further examined using large eddy simulations. Numerical simulations show that the experimentally observed large scale flame structures along the inner shear layer are due to a helical vortex core that originates at the swirler's centerbody. This vortical structure stays aligned with the centerline in the combustor upstream section, but bends and reaches the inner shear layer-stabilized flame around the sudden expansion where it causes the flame wrinkling. We propose that the flame kernel igniting the ORZ/ OSL observed in the experiment may be related to the interaction between the helical vortical structure and the outer shear layer.

Download or read book An Experimental Study of the Effect of a Pilot Flame on Combustion Instabilities written by Jihang Li and published by . This book was released on 2019 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Lean-premixed gas turbines, due to their superior emission performance, have been widely used in the industry. However, lean-premixed combustion is susceptible to combustion instability, which has become a major concern in the design and operation of lean-premixed gas turbines. Passive secondary flames, also known as pilot flames, are commonly used for control of combustion instability. However, the underlying mechanism whereby a pilot flame suppresses combustion instability is not fully understood. This limits the improvement of pilot systems.This dissertation presents an experimental study on the effect of a pilot flame on combustion instabilities in an atmospheric, laboratory-scale, single-nozzle, swirl-stabilized, lean-premixed combustor. The pilot flame is a central jet flame injected from the centerbody, which can operate in either the technically-premixed or the fully-premixed modes, depending on the types of pilot injectors. Piezoelectric sensors are utilized to measure the pressure fluctuation and the velocity fluctuation. High speed CH* chemiluminescence techniques are used to measure the dynamics of the flame. The instability characteristics of the technically-premixed unpiloted flame are measured at varying combustor length. Four distinct instability modes with different frequencies are observed. A one-dimensional simulation is conducted to calculate the natural frequencies and mode shapes of the instabilities. The effect of varying the percent pilot of a technically-premixed pilot flame on the technically-premixed combustion instabilities in different modes is studied. Instability maps to the percent pilot and the overall equivalence ratio are presented and discussed. The instability boundaries in each instability map, which separates the unstable regions from the stable regions, are discussed in detail by analyzing the high-speed images and Rayleigh index images. The results show that the pilot flame affects the main flame dynamics primarily through enhancing flame attachment and flame oscillation in the inner shear layer. The effect of independently varying the pilot air, pilot fuel and pilot mixture flow rates on the technically-premixed combustion instabilities are studied by utilizing a modified pilot injector. The results show that the effect of the pilot flame on the combustion instability is primarily determined by the equivalence ratio, but not the mixture flow rate of the pilot flame. The results support the statement that pilot flames influence the main flame dynamics by heat recirculation and demonstrate that the effect of the pilot flame is determined by its ability to change the time-averaged recirculation zone temperature. The structures of the pilot flame are presented and discussed.Fully-premixed flame transfer functions under the influence of a premixed pilot flame are investigated. The flame transfer functions show distinct behaviors at low frequencies and high frequencies. At low frequencies, the pilot flame has a weak effect on the FTF gain and phase, while at high frequencies, increasing the percent pilot reduces the FTF gain and shifts the FTF phase. High-speed chemiluminescence images show the pilot flame enhances the fluctuation near the base of the flame, which enhances the destructive interference within the inner shear layer, reduces the FTF gain and shifts the FTF phase at high frequencies. By separating the flame transfer function into different regions, it was found that a pilot flame only influences the inner shear layer, but not the near-wall region and the outer recirculation zone.