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Coupling between acoustic waves and flames has become a central issue in the development of many modern combustion systems. This course presents the theoretical background needed to tackle such problems.

Next sessions

From Monday 2nd June, 2025 to Sunday 29th June, 2025

Deadline for registration: 15 days before the starting date of each training

Before signing up, you may wish to report us any particular constraints  (schedules, health, unavailability…) at the following e-mail address : training@cerfacs.fr

Price: students : 240 € – Cerfacs shareholders : 360 € – others : 480 € (Taxes not included)

Satisfaction index

In 2024, 96% of participants were satisfied or very satisfied (results collected from 23 respondents, out of 29 participants, a response rate of 79 %)

Context

Coupling between acoustic waves and flames has become a central issue in the development of many modern combustion systems because of both environmental issues (noise) and the destructive interactions which acoustics can generate in combustors. Numerical tools are essential in many flames/acoustics studies but a theoretical background in acoustics and especially in acoustics for reacting flows is mandatory to tackle such problems.

Scientific content

This online training course presents the fundamental concepts of thermo-acoustic instabilities. The course content is divided in 3 consecutive weeks:

• week 1: introduction of the phenomena
• week 2: laws of 1D acoustic in tubes
• week 3: interaction between a flame and acoustic
• week 4: final examination

An interactive live conference will close the learning and will deal with an application case where you will try to predict the stability of a system. This conference will be held during week 4.

Learning outcomes

At the end of this training, you will be able to:

• explain the origin of thermo-acoustic instabilities in a combustor,
• evaluate the natural frequency of a combustor,
• make recommendations to make an unstable system become stable.

Organization

This is a fully online training session. It is divided into 4 consecutive weeks, based on learning activities delivered each week.

• Week 1 to week 3 require around 2 hours of work per week. Learning activities are released on Monday of each week and you have 7 days to complete each week's activities. The 2 hours of work can be distributed over the week, depending on your schedule.
• A 1 hour live interactive session will hold during week 4. This live session will deal with an applicative case. This live session will also be recorded.
• Last week is dedicated to revising and a final exam, leading to a certificate of learning.

Our pedagogical principles

All our learning sessions are built upon evidence-based principles from cognitive psychology and learning research:

• concepts first: the course is focused on conceptual understanding of the meaning of equations and how they apply in practical cases (Van Heuvelen, 1991).
• active learning: the course is organized around activities especially designed to make participants interact between each other, involving a deep processing of the scientific content previously shown in short videos (Salmon, 2013).
• long-term retention and transfer: because you need to apply what you will learn during this session in the future and in various contexts, our courses are designed using the 10 laboratory-tested principles drawn from cognitive psychology (Halpern and Hakel, 2003).

Be prepared to be engaged and to interact with a community sharing a common goal: learning the scientific content of this course.

Teaching method

The training is an alternation of theoretical presentations and practical work. Multiple choice questions allow a continuous evaluation.

Requirements

While this course is not focused on mathematical aspects, you need to have a clear understanding of Navier Stokes equations and a background in mathematical analysis, in particular with complex number notation. To verify that the prerequisites are satisfied, the following questionnaires must be completed. You need to get at least 75% of correct answers in order to be authorized to follow this online training session.

Questionnaire 1 : https://forms.gle/nde1Qndao4AE9Wb6A

Questionnaire 2 : https://forms.gle/ZyVXJWTVfiVuNp4G9

Register here !

The training takes place in English; level B2 of the CEFR is required.

Evaluation of learning

A final exam will be conducted during the training.

Referent teacher

Jean-Christophe JOUHAUD

Realized with the assistance of the following researchers :

	Dr. Thierry Poinsot Thierry is research director at CNRS, working at the Institute of Fluid Mechanics of Toulouse and scientific advisor at CERFACS Toulouse. His topics of research cover both theoretical and numerical aspect of combustion. He is one of the two authors of the textbook Theoretical and Numerical Combustion.
	Dr. Corentin Lapeyre Corentin Lapeyre is senior scientist at CERFACS. His phD was on numerical study of flame stability, stabilization and noise in a swirl-stabilized combustor under choked conditions.
	Dr. J-F. Parmentier After getting his PhD in Fluid Mechanics working on modeling of two-phase gas-particle flows, he worked for a few years on thermo-acoustic instabilities in annular combustion chambers. Since 2014 he has oriented his research specifically on learning and teaching science using active learning methods.