Limit cycle oscillation local stability

The tendency of premixed flames to detach from the flame holder to stabilize further downstream has also been reported close to the flammability limit in a two-dimensional sudden expansion flow [27]. The change in flame position in the present annular flow arrangement was a consequence of flow oscillations associated with rough combustion, and the flame can be particularly susceptible to detachment and possible extinction, especially at values of equivalence ratio close to the lean flammability limit. Measurements of extinction in opposed jet flames subject to pressure oscillations [28] show that a number of cycles of local flame extinction and relight were required before the flame finally blew off. The number of cycles over which the extinction process occurred depended on the frequency and amplitude of the oscillated input and the equivalence ratios in the opposed jets. Thus the onset of large amplitudes of oscillations in the lean combustor is not likely to lead to instantaneous blow-off, and the availability of a control mechanism to respond to the naturally occurring oscillations at their onset can slow down the progress towards total extinction and restore a stable flame. 

Let us imagine a scenario for which a supercritical Hopf bifurcation occurs as one of the parameters, fi say, is increased. For fi < fi, the stationary state is locally stable. At fi there is a Hopf bifurcation the stationary state loses stability and a stable limit cycle emerges. The limit cycle grows as ft increases above fi. It is quite possible for there to be further bifurcations in the system if we continue to vary fi. With three variables we might expect to have period-doubling sequences or transitions to quasi-periodicity such as those seen with the forced oscillator of the previous section. Such bifurcations, however, will not be signified by any change in the local stability of the stationary state. These are bifurcations from the oscillatory solution, and so we must test the local stability of the limit cycle. We now consider how to do this. 

Instead of using this equation, in the literature, there are few models proposed by which the frequency or Strouhal number of the shedding is fixed. Koch (1985) proposed a resonance model that fixes it for a particular location in the wake by a local linear stability analysis. Upstream of this location, flow is absolutely unstable and downstream, the flow displays convective instability. Nishioka Sato (1973) proposed that the frequency selection is based on maximum spatial growth rate in the wake. The vortex shedding phenomenon starts via a linear instability and the limit cycle-like oscillations result from nonlinear super critical stability of the flow, describ-able by Eqn. (5.3.1). 

Global StaMlity in the CSTR.— The failure of linear stability analysis to cover the macroscopic behaviour of the CSTR is well illustrated by the oscillatory states computed by Aris and Amundson for such a reactor operating with feedback control. Local stability analysis indicates an unstable equilibrium state but in the large this is surrounded by a stable limit cycle and the resultant behaviour is one of temperatures and concentrations oscillating about an unstable state, rather than approaching a stable one. 

This phenomenon is often called "hard self-excitation" because there exists a self-excited (i.e. orbitally asymptotically stable) limit cycle, but to reach the self-excited oscillation requires a "hard" (i.e. finite) perturbation from the steady state. (In contrast, a "soft self-excitation" is illustrated in Fig. I.l.) There is some experimental indication of hard self-excitation in the Belousov-Zhabotinskii reaction. Notice in Fig. II. 1 that after a short induction period the oscillations appear suddenly with large amplitude. This is to be expected for hard self-excitation during the induction period the system is trapped in a locally stable steady state until the kinetic parameters change such that the steady state loses its stability and the system jumps to large amplitude stable oscillations. In the case of soft self-excitation it is expected that as the steady state loses stability, small amplitude stable oscillations first appear and then grow in size. 

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