The effects of unsteady combustion are experimentally studied using forced pulsating mixture supply. It was shown that unsteady combustion used in this experiment plays an important role in controlling self-excited combustion oscillations. It may also have desirable performances, from a practical point of view, such as high combustion load, augmented heat transfer, reduced pollutant emissions and so on. We examined the characteristics of unsteady combustion driven by forced pulsating mixture supply in a small duct-combustor with a rearward-facing step. Further, we found its influence on the onset of self-excited combustion oscillations, the possibility of suppressing self-excited combustion oscillations and the reason why the self-excited combustion oscillation was suppressed using the forced pulsating mixture supply, comparing with the steady mixture supply.