Turbulent burning velocity of wrinkled flamelets

o Assuming tubulent flame to be a wrinkled

laminar flame (Damkhler) turbulent flame
speed can be expressed as,
o The ratio between laminar and mean
turbulent flame area

AE615 Fundamentals of Combustion

Flame extinction

o Dependence of turbulent flame velocity on the turbulence intensity in

the combustion of C3H8-air mixture; hatched: quenching regime
o Laminar premixed flames extinguish for high strain rates. Turbulent
non premixed flames showed the analogous behaviour
AE615 Fundamentals of Combustion

Turbulent Non-Premixed Flames

AE615 Fundamentals of Combustion

Turbulent non-premixed jet flame

AE615 Fundamentals of Combustion

Mixture fraction & Scalar dissipation

o For a jet flame into air, the element mixture fraction is given by (indices 1
& 2 denote the F and Ox streams) as

where, Zi is the element mass fraction which denotes the ratio between
the mass of an element i and the total mass

Assuming equilibrium (fast) chemistry, equal diffusivity and Le =1 and no

heat loss, all scalar variables (temperature, mass fractions, and density) are
known functions of f only. The known function is the equilibrium
composition

AE615 Fundamentals of Combustion

o Scalar dissipation rate: dissipates fluctuations in scalars just as viscous

dissipation dissipates fluctuations in velocity. The average rate of scalar
dissipation is given by

where D is a representative coefficient of diffusion for the scalar field and

grad f is the spatial derivative of the mixture fraction
o It has the dimension of s-1 and its inverse can be interpreted as the
characteristic diffusion time across the flame

AE615 Fundamentals of Combustion

Finite rate chemistry effects

Laser Raman-scatter plots

Turbulent H2 nonpremixed jet flame

Jet velocity increased by a factor of 3

AE615 Fundamentals of Combustion

Flame Extinction

o Calculated temperature profiles

in a CH4-air counterflow nonpremixed flame for different
o The maximum flame
temperature decreases with
increasing
o For > q, extinction is
observed (q =20.6 s-1 ; q
quenching)

AE615 Fundamentals of Combustion

Lift-off

o Extinction due to scalar

dissipation which is
highest near to the nozzle
o Strain rate is largest at this
location
o Complex case of partially
premixed turbulent flame
o Variable required to
describe the degree of
premixedness

AE615 Fundamentals of Combustion

Laminar lifted flames - Triple flames

Ref: K.M. Lyons / Progress in Energy and Combustion Science 33 (2007) 211231

AE615 Fundamentals of Combustion

Turbulent lifted flames

o Whether intact triple flames can exist, generally, in highly turbulent

flowfields ?

AE615 Fundamentals of Combustion

Turbulent lifted flame - theories

o The Premixed Flame Theory: the lifted flame base is premixed and
burns at the local burning velocity, which permits flame stabilization
o The Critical Scalar Dissipation Concept: the extinction of diffusion
flamelets controls flame stabilization. The lifted turbulent flame stabilizes
where the relevant scalar dissipation rate falls below a critical value.
o The Turbulent Intensity Theory: the enhanced turbulent burning
velocity, instead of the laminar flame propagation speed, strongly impacts
the propagation of the reaction zone, and is related to the turbulence
intensity at the leading edge.
o The Large Eddy Concept: it is assumed that the flame leading-edge is
attached to (or, in some way, connected with) large eddies, and is able to
migrate to its upstream neighboring structure repeatedly to stabilize the
reaction zone.
o The Edge-Flame Concept: the flame leading edge is partially premixed,
and thereby, can propagate upstream to counter the local flowfield, while
also modifying it through heat release.
Ref: K.M. Lyons / Progress in Energy and Combustion Science 33 (2007) 211231

AE615 Fundamentals of Combustion