Use of filtered combustion light and backlit high-speed images in combustion stability studies

The measurement of the heat release is a key part of characterizing the combustion instability, but it is extremely difficult to directly measure in a rocket combustion chamber due to high temperatures and pressures, as well as the complexity of the turbulent reacting flowfield, which can often have more than one phase. Measuring the light emission from excited species during a combustion is a nonintrusive method to approximate a global heat release in combustion chambers. CH∗ and OH∗ are the most often measured species. This paper outlines methods of using a filtered combustion light to obtain a better understanding of the physical mechanisms active in the combustion instability, and to provide partial validation data for predictive models of the combustion instability. Methods that are discussed include Rayleigh index, phase-angle plots, a proper orthogonal decomposition (POD), and a simultaneous imaging of combustion light and backlit flow structures. The methods are applied to an experiment that studies the effects of imposed transverse oscillations on a gas-centered, swirl-coaxial injector element