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The vibrations caused by combustion instabilities that can
destroy a rocket motor can also make industrial furnaces more
efficient and productive, says Dr. Ben Zinn. For more than 30 years,
Zinn, of Georgia Tech's School of Aerospace
Engineering and School of Mechanical Engineering,
has studied the causes and control of combustion instabilities
that generate intense sound inside a variety of combustion
systems, particularly in rocket motors and gas turbines. Unless
controlled, these large-amplitude sound waves will cause engine
or mission failure.
Dr. Zinn's team, one of the world's premier research groups
in this field, is developing a novel approach for preventing the
occurrence of detrimental combustion instabilities. Their
approach employs a control system that rapidly detects the
presence of sound waves and then modifies the fuel-injection
scheme in a manner that instantaneously dampens the instability.
To date, the effectiveness of this approach has been demonstrated
on an experimental rocket motor at Georgia Tech and on
a full-scale, power-generating, low-emissions gas turbine at
Westinghouse.
Zinn's studies have also found that the intense sound waves
that occur in rockets and gas turbines can improve domestic and
industrial combustion systems. Zinn's group, with the support of
the Gas Research Institute, U.S. Department of Energy and the
Environmental Protection Agency, has demonstrated that pulse
combustion — an oscillatory combustion process that generates
sound waves — can increase the efficiency and productivity of
unpulverized coal combustors, full-scale
rotary cement kilns, steel ladle preheaters, incinerators and
dryers.
The pulse combustion process also increases the
combustion efficiency and lowers the emissions of nitrogen
oxides, carbon monoxide and soot in systems that burn such fuels
as coal, wood, propane and natural gas.
Zinn and his colleagues are working, under Department of
Defense support, on the development of novel micro-combustion and
power generation systems that could power remote sensors and
unmanned aircraft and vehicles. Further into the future, these
micro-power generators could replace batteries. The sound waves
reverberating inside these systems may be beautiful music to the
environment and economy.
Courtesy of Dr. Ben Zinn
Pulse combustion — an oscillatory combustion process that
generates sound waves — can increase the efficiency and
productivity of unpulverized coal combustors, full-scale rotary
cement kilns, steel ladle preheaters, incinerators and dryers,
according to research led by aerospace engineering professor Dr.
Ben Zinn.
For more information, contact Dr. Ben Zinn, School of Aerospace Engineering,
Georgia Tech, Atlanta, GA 30332-0150. (Telephone: 404-894-3033) (E-mail:
ben.zinn@aerospace.gatech.edu)
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Last updated: October 25, 1999