Experimental Studies of Bifurcations Leading to Chaos in a Laboratory Scale Thermoacoustic System

Bifurcation analysis is conducted on experimental data obtained from a simple setup comprising of ducted, laminar pre-mixed conical flames to investigate the features of nonlinear thermoacoustic oscillations. It is observed that as the bifurcation parameter is varied, the system undergoes series of bifurcations leading to characteristically different nonlinear oscillations. Through the application of nonlinear time series analysis on pressure and flame (CH* chemiluminescence) intensity time traces, these oscillations are characterised as periodic, aperiodic or chaotic oscillations and subsequently the nature of the obtained bifurcations is explained based on dynamical systems theory. Nonlinear interaction between the flames and the acoustic modes of the duct is clearly reflected in the high speed flame images acquired simultaneously with pressure and flame intensity measurements.