Assessment of the LES-FGM framework for capturing stable and unstable modes in a hydrogen / methane fuelled premixed combustor

The main objective of this paper is to assess the capability of compressible Large Eddy Simulations (LES) to capture azimuthal combustion instability. The thickened flame model coupled with Flamelet Generated Manifold (FGM) tabulated chemistry is used as the combustion model. LES of an annular combustor is performed for five cases featuring stable and unstable combustion of hydrogen-methane mixtures. The unstable modes feature azimuthal instabilities and this annular combustor is used to test the LES-FGM framework. A consistent methodology is applied across all cases. It is found that LES predicts azimuthal modes for stable cases but these modes are weak and intermittent with pressure fluctuation amplitudes within the order of experimental noise. In addition, the unstable cases capture azimuthal modes that have approximately the same frequency as that of the experiment though the amplitudes of the modes are over-predicted. This suggests that the described LES-FGM framework is able to predict the onset of thermoacoustic instabilities and their qualitative changes with addition of hydrogen. © 2023 The Combustion Institute