Applications

Bunsen burner

Bunsen burner, device for combining a flammable gas with controlled amounts of
air before ignition; it produces a hotter flame than would be possible using the
ambient air and gas alone. Named for Robert Bunsen, the German chemist who
introduced it in 1855 (from a design by Peter Desdega, who likely modified an earlier
design by Michael Faraday), the Bunsen burner was the forerunner of the gas-stove
burner and the gas furnace. The Bunsen burner consists of a metal tube on a base with
a gas inlet at the lower end of the tube, which may have an adjusting valve; openings
in the sides of the tube can be regulated by a collar to admit as much air as desired.
The mixture of air and gas (optimally about 1 part gas to 3 parts air) is forced by gas
pressure to the top of the tube, where it is ignited with a match. It burns with a pale
blue flame, the primary flame, seen as a small inner cone, and a secondary, almost
colourless flame, seen as a larger, outer cone, which results when the remaining gas is
completely oxidized by the surrounding air.
The hottest part of the Bunsen flame, which is found just above the tip of the primary
flame, reaches about 1,500 C (2,700 F). With too little air, the gas mixture will not
burn completely and will form tiny carbon particles that are heated to glowing,
making the flame luminous. With too much air, the flame may burn inside the burner
tube; that is, it may strike back. The Meker and Fisher burners, variations of the
original Bunsen burner, have metallic grids to increase the turbulence of the mixture
and keep the flame at the top of the tube. The Fisher burner uses forced air. There is
no secondary flame dependent on surrounding air, because these improvements
introduce sufficient air for complete combustion, and the heat of the primary flame is
augmented.


Cone of a Bunsen burner flame.

Encyclopdia Britannica, Inc.

Jet engine after buner

An afterburner (or a reheat) is a component present on some jet engines, mostly

those used on military supersonic aircraft. Its purpose is to provide an increase in
thrust, usually for supersonic flight, takeoff and for combat situations. Afterburning is
achieved by injecting additional fuel into the jet pipe downstream of (i.e. after) the
turbine. Afterburning significantly increases thrust at the cost of very high fuel
consumption and decreased fuel efficiency, limiting its practical use to short bursts.

Pilots can activate and deactivate afterburners in-flight, and jet engines are referred to
as operating wet when afterburning is being used and dry when not.[1] An engine
producing maximum thrust wet is at maximum power, while an engine producing
maximum thrust dry is at military power.[2]
Principle

SR-71 Blackbird in flight with J58 engine on full afterburner, with numerous shock diamonds
visible in the exhaust

Close-up of afterburners on a British Eurofighter Typhoon

Jet-engine thrust is governed by the general principle of mass flow rate. Thrust
depends on two things: the velocity of the exhaust gas and the mass of that gas. A jet
engine can produce more thrust by either accelerating the gas to a higher velocity or
by having a greater mass of gas exit the engine. Designing a basic turbojet engine
around the second principle produces the turbofan engine, which creates slower gas
but more of it. Turbofans are highly fuel efficient and can deliver high thrust for long
periods, but the design trade-off is a large size relative to the power output. To
generate increased power with a more compact engine for short periods, an engine
requires an afterburner. The afterburner increases thrust primarily by accelerating the
exhaust gas to a higher velocity. While the mass of the fuel added to the exhaust does
contribute to an increase in exhaust mass, this effect is negligible compared to the
increase in exhaust velocity.[citation needed]

The temperature of the gas in the engine is highest just before the turbine, and the
ability for the turbine to withstand these temperatures is one of the primary
restrictions on total dry engine thrust. This temperature is known as the Turbine Entry
Temperature (TET), one of the critical engine operating parameters. Because a
combustion rate high enough to consume all the intake oxygen would create
temperatures high enough to overheat the turbine, the flow of fuel must be restricted
to an extent that fuel rather than oxygen becomes the limiting factor in the reaction,
leaving some oxygen to flow past the turbine. After passing the turbine, the gas
expands at a near constant entropy, thus losing temperature.[3] The afterburner then
injects fuel downstream of the turbine and reheats the gas. As a result of the
temperature rise in the tailpipe, the gas is ejected through the nozzle at a higher
velocity. The mass flow is also slightly increased by the addition of the fuel.

Afterburners do produce markedly enhanced thrust as well as a visible flame at the

back of the engine. This exhaust flame may show shock diamonds, which are caused
by shock waves formed due to slight differences between ambient pressure and the
exhaust pressure. These imbalances cause oscillations in the exhaust jet diameter over
distance and cause the visible banding where the pressure and temperature is highest.