In this study, a spatiotemporal characterization of forced and unforced flows of a conical swirler is performed based on particle image velocimetry (PIV) and laser Doppler anemometry (LDA). The measurements are performed at a Reynolds number of 33,000 and a swirl number of 0.71. Axisymmetric forcing is applied to approximate the effects of thermoacoustic instabilities on the flow field at the burner inlet and outlet. The actuation frequencies are set at the natural flow frequency (Strouhal

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... r St f Ϸ 0.92) and two higher frequencies (St f Ϸ 1.3 and 1.55) that are not harmonically related to the natural frequency. Phase-averaged measurement are used as a first step to visualize the coherent flow structures. Second, proper orthogonal decomposition (POD) is applied to the PIV data to characterize the effect of the actuation on the fluctuating flow. Measurements indicate a typical natural flow instability of helical nature in the unforced case. The associated induced pressure and flow oscillations travel upstream to the swirler inlet where generally fuel is injected. This observation is of critical importance with respect to the stability of the combustion. Harmonic actuation at different frequencies and amplitudes does not affect the mean velocity profile at the outlet, while the coherent velocity fluctuations are strongly influenced at both the inlet and outlet. On one hand, the dominant helical mode is replaced by an axisymmetric vortex ring if the flow is forced at the natural flow frequency. On the other hand, the natural flow frequency prevails at the outlet under forcing at higher frequencies and POD analysis indicates that the helical structure is still present. The presented results give new insight into the flow dynamics of a swirling flow burner under strong forcing.