Assessing thermoacoustic quality in combustion systems using the stability quality factor S

Thermoacoustic instability poses a significant challenge in the development of combustion appliances, where the lack of specific information on upstream and downstream acoustic terminations during the research and development phase is common. This knowledge gap often necessitates extensive trial-and-error approaches, emphasizing the need for a reliable indicator to assess thermoacoustic quality in advance. Traditionally, a burner and its associated flame are characterized as an acoustically active two-port block, coupled with passive acoustic terminations upstream and downstream. In this paper, we investigate the application of the direct conservative stability criterion in the frequency domain to introduce a suitable indicator, termed the [Formula: see text] factor, as a figure-of-merit for thermoacoustic quality. We explore various scenarios that may arise during the research and development phase of thermoacoustically stable combustion systems. Additionally, we address the limitations associated with using Monte Carlo simulations to determine the probability of instability as a potential figure-of-merit. Our findings highlight potential misinterpretations and misrepresentations when employing the Monte Carlo approach to evaluate and compare the thermoacoustic quality of different burners and flames. Finally, the applicability of the [Formula: see text] factor is demonstrated and experimentally validated in the lab-scale thermoacoustic system to rank two different burners at the same thermal power.