Suppression of thermo-acoustic instabilities in central heating equipment by burner design optimization and active control (10430)

Boilers and central heating systems are highly susceptible to acoustic instability of combustion. This problem is especially pronounced under premixed fuel lean operation, widely used in this kind of systems due to the lower thermal NOx emissions. New generations of heating equipment are needed to minimize these emissions and to adapt to variations in gas composition (both geographical and in time). In the design phase of new heating equipment the problem of acoustic instability is currently handled by trial and error, after the first prototypes are built. This significantly increases costs and design time. The goal of this project is to suppress acoustic instabilities in boilers with complex burner deck configurations. In order to reach this goal we will develop a design-stage (passive strategy) and active model-based control strategy.

This combination of passive and active strategies will enable a noiseless design of future generation boilers and central heating systems at low cost.