Limit-cycle properties of a Rijke tube

Thermoacoustic instability appears when unsteady heat release is favourably coupled with acoustic pressure perturbations. The important technical applications involving thermoacoustics are combustion instability in rocket motors and low-pollutant lean flames; noisy industrial burners; pulsed combustors; and thermoacoustic engines. The simplest device for studying thermoacoustic instability is a Rijke tube. In this work, a series of experiments is carried out to determine the nonlinear behavior of the transition to instability and the excited regimes for an electrically driven Rijke tube. A hysteresis effect in the stability boundary is observed. A mathematical theory involving heat transfer, acoustics, and thermoacoustic interactions is developed to predict the transition to instability and limit-cycle properties.