Flame enhancement and quenching in fluid flows

Natalia Vladimirova, Peter Constantin, Alexander Kiselev, Oleg Ruchayskiy, Leonid Ryzhik

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

46 Scopus citations

Abstract

We perform direct numerical simulations of an advected scalar field which diffuses and reacts according to a nonlinear reaction law. The objective is to study how the bulk burning rate of the reaction is affected by an imposed flow. In particular, we are interested in comparing the numerical results with recently predicted analytical upper and lower bounds. We focus on the reaction enhancement and quenching phenomena for two classes of imposed model flows with different geometries: periodic shear flow and cellular flow. We are primarily interested in the fast advection regime. We find that the bulk burning rate v in a shear flow satisfies v ∼ aU + b where U is the typical flow velocity and a is a constant depending on the relationship between the oscillation length scale of the flow and laminar front thickness. For cellular flow, we obtain v ∼ U1/4. We also study the flame extinction (quenching) for an ignition-type reaction law and compactly supported initial data for the scalar field. We find that in a shear flow the flame of size W can be typically quenched by a flow with amplitude U ∼ αW. The constant α depends on the geometry of the flow and tends to infinity if the flow profile has a plateau larger than a critical size. In a cellular flow, we find that the advection strength required for quenching is U ∼ W4 if the cell size is smaller than a critical value.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)487-508
Number of pages22
JournalCombustion Theory and Modelling
Volume7
Issue number3
DOIs
StatePublished - Sep 2003

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • General Chemistry
  • General Chemical Engineering
  • Modeling and Simulation
  • Fuel Technology
  • Energy Engineering and Power Technology
  • General Physics and Astronomy

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