The present work details the analysis of the aerodynamics of an experimental
swirl stabilized burner representative of gas turbine combustors. This analysis
is carried out using High Frequency PIV (HFPIV) measurements in a reactive
situation. While this information is usually available at a rather low rate,
temporally resolved PIV measurements are necessary to better understand highly
turbulent swirled flows, which are unsteady by nature. Thanks to recent
technical improvements, a PIV system working at 12 kHz has been developed to
study this experimental combustor flow field. Statistical quantities of the
burner are first obtained and analyzed, and the measurement quality is checked,
then a temporal analysis of the velocity field is carried out, indicating that
large coherent structures periodically appear in the combustion chamber. The
frequency of these structures is very close to the quarter wave mode of the
chamber, giving a possible explanation for combustion instability coupling