Bifurcation and nonlinear analysis of a time-delayed thermoacoustic system

In this paper, of primary concern is a time-delayed thermoacoustic system, viz. a horizontal Rijke tube. A continuation approach is employed to capture the nonlinear behaviour inherent to the system. Unlike the conventional approach by the Galerkin method, a dynamic system is naturally built up by discretizing the acoustic momentum and energy equations incorporating appropriate boundary conditions using a finite difference method. In addition, the interaction of Rijke tube velocity with oscillatory heat release is modeled using a modified form of King's law. A comparison of the numerical results with experimental data and the calculations reported reveals that the current approach can yield very good predictions. Moreover, subcritical Hopf bifurcations and fold bifurcations are captured with the evolution of dimensionless heat release coefficient, generic damping coefficient and time delay. Linear stability boundary, nonlinear stability boundary, bistable region and limit cycles are thus determined to gain an understanding of the intrinsic nonlinear behaviours.