ONLINE ADAPTIVE OPTIMAL COMBUSTOR CONTROL

A combustor control strategy that optimizes the trade-off between incr easing volumetric heat release and decreasing pressure fluctuations in a laboratory-scale combustor is described, The strategy uses actuatio n and sensing techniques that simultaneously control and measure volum etric heat release and pressure fluctuations to minimize a cost functi on while the combustor operates. The cost function is a weighted combi nation of mean volumetric heat release and rms pressure fluctuation le vel, The combustor is maintained at the optimum operating condition wh en the combustor is subject to unknown inlet condition changes through continuous searching for the best actuator input combinations, The ad aptivity of the strategy has been experimentally tested with unknown i nlet condition changes such as how disturbances, changes in equivalenc e ratio, and changes in inlet velocity, and results show that the cont rol strategy can reminimize the cost function within four minutes for large and small inlet condition changes.