Four helical-grooved cones were installed behind an unconfined combustion nozzle to increase the bluff-body effect and turbulence intensity (T.I.). The cone configurations included a smooth cone and the other three cones cut with 1, 2 and 3 helical v-grooves. Experimental results showed that the helical v-grooves transformed the axial momentum (or the axial velocity) to the angular momentum (or the angular velocity). The T.I. was enhanced by increasing the tangential component of fuel-jet momentum. The direct photography and thermocouple were utilized to observe the flame structures and to delineate the characteristic flame modes, flame length, temperature distribution, and combustion intensity. The flame modes were classified as jet flame, flickering flame, bubble flame, recirculation flame, lifted flame and ring flame. The flame length decreases as the groove number increases. The increased T.I. and groove number (or bluff-body effect) improve the fuel-air mixing. The total combustion intensity increases with annular-air jet and with the groove number.
