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Proceedings of the Combustion Institute 33 (2011) 1137–1144
www.elsevier.com/locate/proci

Effect of AC electric fields on the stabilization

of premixed bunsen flames
M.K. Kim a, S.H. Chung a,*, H.H. Kim b
a
Clean Combustion Research Center, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, Thuwal, Saudi Arabia
b
School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Seoul National University, Seoul 151-742, Republic of Korea

Available online 6 August 2010

Abstract

The stabilization characteristics of laminar premixed bunsen flames have been investigated experimen-
tally for stoichiometric methane–air mixture by applying AC voltage to the nozzle with the single-electrode
configuration. The detachment velocity either at blowoff or partial-detachment has been measured by vary-
ing the applied voltage and frequency of AC. The result showed that the detachment velocity increased
with the applied AC electric fields, such that the flame could be nozzle-attached even over five times of
the blowoff velocity without having electric fields. There existed four distinct regimes depending on applied
AC voltage and frequency. In the low voltage regime, the threshold condition of AC electric fields was
identified, below which the effect of electric fields on the detachment velocity is minimal. In the moderate
voltage regime, the flame base oscillated with the frequency synchronized to AC frequency and the detach-
ment velocity increased linearly with the applied AC voltage and nonlinearly with the frequency. In the
high voltage regime, two different sub-regimes depending on AC frequency were observed. For relatively
low frequency, the flame base oscillated with the applied AC frequency together with the half frequency
and the variation of the detachment velocity was insensitive to the applied voltage. For relatively high fre-
quency, the stabilization of the flame was significantly affected by the generation of streamers and the
detachment velocity decreased with the applied voltage.
Ó 2010 The Combustion Institute. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Electric fields; Blowoff; Premixed flame; Stabilization; Laminar jet

1. Introduction lems as geometrical limitation and electrode con-

Electric-field assisted combustion has been
investigated with regard to flame speed, pollutant
formation, and the stabilization characteristics in
various flames [1–18]. In applying electric fields
on flames, two-electrode configuration has been
frequently adopted. This could pose such prob-
* zone.
Corresponding author.
E-mail address: sukho.chung@kaust.edu.sa (S.H.
Chung).
tamination when exposed to hot burnt gas. In
this regard, the single-electrode configuration has
been proposed [3], in which the fuel nozzle served
as one electrode and the other electrode was con-
nected to a building ground. Thus, the configura-
tion can be regarded as an open circuit resembling
the situation with the other electrode placed at
infinity. In such a case, the nozzle electrode could
interact with charged-particles existed in a flame
The stabilization of jet flames is one of the key
issues in designing a burner. Consequently, the

1540-7489/$ - see front matter Ó 2010 The Combustion Institute. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.proci.2010.06.062
1138 M.K. Kim et al. / Proceedings of the Combustion Institute 33 (2011) 1137–1144
characteristics of liftoff, blowout, blowoff, and
reattachment have been investigated extensively
for nonpremixed jet flames [18–24]. To improve
the stabilization characteristics of jet flames, the
effects of electric fields or plasmas on the stabiliza-
tion of jet flames have been investigated [4–9]. The
single-electrode configuration has been applied to
study the effect of electric fields on the stabiliza-
tion of nonpremixed jet flames, including the reat-
tachment of laminar lifted flames [10], the
propagation speed of tribrachial flames [11], the
liftoff and blowoff of laminar flames [25], the oscil-
lation of lifted flames [26], and the liftoff of non-
premixed turbulent jet flames [3]. The results
showed that the stabilization of nonpremixed jet
flames in terms of liftoff velocity could be
improved appreciably by applying electric fields.
This implies that a burner can be operated to
higher jet velocity in the nozzle-attached flame
mode with relatively low electric power consump-
tion in the order of 1 W.
Electric fields could affect charge-carriers in a
reaction zone, having typical number density of
109–1012 cm3 [1,2], in various ways. Electric
fields redistribute charge-carriers and generate
electric pressure. From a molecular point of view,
charged-particles can be accelerated by the Lor-
entz force. The acceleration induces drift velocity
such that the diffusion flux of charged-particles
can be enhanced. The accelerated charged-parti-
cles transfer their momentum to neutral particles
by random collision such that bulk flow can be
generated, resulting in the ionic wind effect. The
increased kinetic energy of charged-particles could
contribute associated reaction rates. Numerous
studies have been performed, however, the quan-
tification of respective contributions from the dif-
fusion, ionic wind, and chemical reaction are as
yet to be identified.
The objective of the present study is to investi-
gate the flame stabilization characteristics of pre-
mixed bunsen flames to study the effect of
electric fields on blowoff and/or partial-detach-
ment. The effects of DC and pulsed DC electric
fields have been investigated previously [4–6,12–
15], however, studies on the effect of AC especially
with relatively low frequency are rather limited.
The enhancement of flame stabilization, the effect
of equivalence ratio, and the extension of lean
blowout limit have been exhibited [4–6]. In the
present study, we will focused on the augmenta-
tion of stabilization by AC electric fields, espe-
cially for the stoichiometric mixture to identify
the effects of voltage and frequency of AC. Note
that similar improvement in blow off velocity
was observed for a lean mixture.
The blowoff and/or partial-detachment phe-
nomena for premixed bunsen flames even without
having electric fields are very complex involving
heat loss to nozzle, local flow modification by heat
generation, flame quenching, and radical interac-
tion with burner rim. Although the boundary
velocity gradient concept has been proposed and
tested [27,28], detailed quantification capabilities
are still limited. Thus, in the present study we will
mainly focus on observed flame behavior with
electric fields and detailed understanding will be
a future study.
2. Experiment
The apparatus consisted of a nozzle, flow con-
trollers with bypass system, a power supply, and
measurement setups, as schematically shown in
Fig. 1. The nozzle with flush end was made of
stainless steel with i.d. 4.10 mm and o.d.
6.35 mm and the length of 50 cm to ensure the
fully developed velocity profile at the exit for the
jet velocity up to 7 m/s. A nozzle holder made of
acetal-resin was used for electrical insulation. A
plastic mesh surrounded the burner to prevent
outer flow disturbances.
Chemically-pure grade methane was used for
the fuel. The oxidizer was the mixture of oxy-
gen/nitrogen (21%/79% by vol.). The flow rates
were controlled by mass flow controllers, cali-
brated with a wet-test gas meter. The fuel and oxi-
dizer were premixed through a mixing chamber
and the mixture concentration has been fixed to
the stoichiometry. A bypass system was adopted
to vary the flow rate while maintaining the stoichi-
ometry. The amount of bypass was measured by
using a wet-test gas meter.
The power supply (Trek, 10/10B-FG) was uti-
lized as an electrical source. The AC frequency
was controlled in the range of 60–1000 Hz by
using a function generator. The AC voltage was
varied up to 7 kV (RMS) and monitored by an
oscilloscope with a 1000:1 probe. A current probe
(Tektronix, TCPA300) were used to measure cur-
rent near the nozzle exit. The fuel nozzle served as
a high potential electrode by connecting to the
high voltage terminal of the power supply. The
Fig. 1. Schematic of experimental setup.
 M.K. Kim et al. / Proceedings of the Combustion Institute 33 (2011) 1137–1144
other terminal of the power supply was connected
to a building ground. In this single-electrode con-
figuration, the system can be considered as an
open circuit and the electric fields can be con-
ceived as that induced between the nozzle elec-
trode and infinite ground [11].
The actual intensity of electric fields exerted on
a flame base can be much more complex due to
the existence of charge-carriers in a reaction zone.
Therefore, the experimental data will be presented
in terms of control parameters of applied voltage
and frequency.
The characteristics of flame stabilization were
observed by varying the jet velocity for specified
AC voltage and frequency. Direct photographs
were taken by a digital camera. The behavior of
flame base oscillation was monitored by using a
high speed camera (Photron, Fastcam Ultima
APX-i2) with 1000 fps. To visualize the streamers
generated at certain conditions of AC power, an
intensified charge-coupled device camera (Prince-
ton Instrument, ICCD MAX) was used. A narrow
band-pass filter (337 ± 5 nm) was utilized to mea-
sure the emission from N2 ðC 3 Pu –B3 Pg Þ transi-
tion, which has been known as the indicator of
the spontaneous emission from streamers in air
[3,29].
3. Results and discussion
In case of laminar premixed bunsen flames, a
stationary nozzle-attached flame can be formed
when the jet velocity U0 is smaller than a blowoff
limit and larger than a flashback limit [27,28]. As
the jet velocity becomes excessive, the flame base
suddenly detaches from the nozzle and a blowoff
occurs. In the present experiment, the blowoff
velocity without having electric fields U o0 jBO was
1.28 m/s.
To demonstrate the effectiveness of AC fields
on flame stabilization, Fig. 2 shows direct photo-
graphs for Vac = 3 kV and fac = 800 Hz with jet
(a) (b) (c) (d) (e) (f)
Fig. 2. Direct photographs of nozzle-attached and
partially-detached flames for U0 = 1.26 m/s (a), 2.12
(b), 3.38 (c), 4.23 (d), 4.74 (e), 5.14 (f), and 5.85 (g) with
Va = 3 kV and f = 800 Hz (dotted line: position of
nozzle exit).
1139
velocity. When the electric fields are applied, the
flame can be attached to the nozzle exit for the
jet velocity over U o0 jBO of 1.28 m/s up to
U0 = 4.32 m/s (a–d). At further increased jet
velocity, the flame base becomes partially-
detached from the nozzle rim (e–g) having asym-
metric edge flame at the flame base. The complete
blowoff occurs at U0 = 6.01 m/s. Note that the
flame blows off axisymmetrically when without
having electric fields.
Figure 3 shows the typical behavior of bunsen
flames plotted in terms of jet velocity and voltage.
The jet velocities either at partial-detachment or
blowoff are marked. As mentioned previously,
DC electric fields with two-electrode configuration
shows improved flame stabilization [4,13,14],
meaning that the flame can be stably nozzle-
attached with jet velocity over the blowoff velocity
without having electric fields. In this regard, DC
field effect has also tested in the present single-
electrode configuration. The effect of DC field
on blowoff was minimal up to ±7 kV in the plot,
where + indicates positive charge to the nozzle.
At very high DC voltage, e.g., at Vdc = 14.7 kV,
the blowoff velocity U 0 jBO was increase to 1.30 m/s
with 1.56% improvement over U o0 jBO , while
U0|BO = 1.23 m/s for Vdc = +14.7 kV indicating
deterioration of stabilization. Although the effect
of DC is much weaker, this result is in accordance
with the case having two-electrode configuration,
base on the effect of ionic wind.
With AC of fac = 800 Hz, two distinct behav-
iors prior to blowoff are identified: axisymmetric
nozzle-attached flame and partially-detached
flame. Once the flame is partially-detached, the
distance between the nozzle rim and flame base
varies along the circumference. Then the gas
expansion effect by heat release near the flame
edge is not uniform, which affects the velocity pro-
file. In this situation, the local jet velocity near the
nozzle cannot be readily characterized from the
mean jet velocity U0. Thus, our attention will be
Linear fitting
7
(g)
Jet velocity U [m/s]
6
No flame e
m
5 fla
0
ed
ch Axisymmetric nozzle-
ta
4 -de attached flame
lly
r t ia
Pa Asymmetric blowoff
3 Partial detachment
Direct blowoff
2 Positive DC
Negative DC
U0o|BO
1
0 A 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Applied voltage V [kV]
ac
Fig. 3. Detachment and blowoff velocities for
fac = 800 Hz at various AC voltages and DC voltages.
1140 M.K. Kim et al. / Proceedings of the Combustion Institute 33 (2011) 1137–1144

focused at the moment of partial-detachment, influence the stabilization. In regime II, the
where the axisymmetricity maintains until the par- detachment velocity increases reasonably linearly
tial-detachment. In the following, the conditions with applied voltage and will be further analyzed
of partial-detachment and axisymmetric blowoff later. When the voltage is relatively high, two dis-
are defined as the detachment condition and the tinct sub-regimes are observed. First, for
variation of the detachment velocity U0|D will be fac 6 180 Hz, the normalized velocity becomes
investigated. insensitive to the voltage while it increases with
The result in Fig. 3 also demonstrates the exis- frequency (regime III). For fac P 200 Hz, the
tence of linear regime at the partial-detachment detachment occurs with sizzling noise and the
condition in the range of 0.6 < Vac < 4 kV, detachment velocity decreases with voltage
marked as the dashed line. When the applied volt- (regime IV).
age is small, the influence on detachment velocity To identify the source of audible noise, N2-
is weak. Thus, one can define the cross-point (A) chemiluminescence images were taken by using
between the straight line in the linear regime and the ICCD camera. Three images at different jet
the horizontal line extending from U o0 jBO , as the velocities and AC powers were exhibited in
threshold voltage below which the influence of Fig. 4(a–c). For Vac = 5 kV and fac = 1000 Hz,
electric fields on detachment velocity can be no streamers and no audible sizzling noise were
regarded as minimal. For Vac > 4.5 kV, the generated for U 0 =U o0 jBO ¼ 3:35 (a) with the flame
increasing trend in the detachment velocity with nozzle-attached. However, for U 0 jD =U o0 jBO ¼ 5:18
voltage is mitigated and the detachment velocity (c) which corresponds to regime IV, the flame was
starts to decrease. detached just after the generation of streamers
The maximum detachment velocity of between the flame base and nozzle, marked as
U0|D = 6.15 m/s can be obtained at Vac = 4.75 kV, the arrow. In case of Vac = 4 kV and
which is 4.8 times larger than U o0 jBO . This implies fac = 1000 Hz, the flame detached without the
that the stabilization characteristics are apprecia- generation of streamer, corresponding to regime
bly improved by AC electric fields. II. The image (b) was taken at U 0 =U o0 jBO ¼ 4:92
just prior to the detachment condition of
3.1. Various stabilization regimes U 0 jD =U o0 jBO ¼ 4:97. Again, no streamers are
observed.
The normalized jet velocity U 0 jD =U o0 jBO , The audible hissing noise with streamers
defined by the ratio of the detachment velocity implies that there exists an acoustic pressure fluc-
to the blowoff velocity without having electric tuation by the streamers which can lead to flow
fields, is plotted with voltage at various frequen- field disturbance. In the previous research [10], a
cies in Fig. 4. There exist four different regimes. disturbance in flow fields at very high voltage
In regime I, the change in the detachment velocity was observed from schlieren images. Therefore,
is minimally affected by the voltage. The threshold the stabilization of laminar flame can be deterio-
voltage Vth for a specified frequency can be deter- rated due to the disturbance of the flow fields
mined as mentioned in Fig. 3. It has been found induced by the generation of streamers. Conse-
that the correlation has the best fit of quently, the increasing trend in the detachment
V th ½kV ¼ 18:84  fac0:51 ½s0:51  with the correlation velocity with the applied voltage in regime II
coefficient of R = 0.926. This result implies that (Fig. 4) deteriorates in regime IV.
lower voltage is required at higher frequency to It has been known that the generation of strea-
mer is facilitated by the increase in AC frequency
[25]. In the present experiment, the critical voltage
6 for the transition between regimes II and IV has
Frequency [Hz]
BO

60 been determined from the local maximum values

Normalized velocity U | /U |
o

90
in the normalized detachment velocity in Fig. 4,
0

5 120 a b c
150 IV which is closely relative to the streamer genera-
0D

180
4 200 tion. The best fit is VII,IV [kV] = 20.2613 
f0.219[s0.219] with R = 0.989.
250
300
500
3 800 II (a) To further elucidate the flame characteristics in
1000 regimes II and III, a high speed camera was used
2 III to monitor the behavior of flame base. In Fig. 5,
the variation of the flame base height with time
I (upper) and the FFT result (lower) are shown at
1
several selected conditions of voltage, frequency,
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 and jet velocity. For regime II with Vac = 3 kV,
Applied voltage V [kV] fac = 110 Hz and U0 = 1.92 m/s (a), the flame base
ac
oscillates with the same frequency as the applied
Fig. 4. Normalized detachment velocity with applied AC. The mean position of base height is
AC voltage at various frequencies. Hb = 1.73 mm. Note that, without having electric
 M.K. Kim et al. / Proceedings of the Combustion Institute 33 (2011) 1137–1144 1141

Time [sec] Time [sec] 7

0 0.01 0.02 0.03 0.04 0.05 0 0.01 0.02 0.03 0.04 0.05

2.5
6
2.0
IV

[kV]
1.5
1.0 5 III

ac
0.5 0.6
~ fac− 0.22
Base height H [mm]

AC voltage V
0.4
0.0 4 ~ fac

Amplitude [a.u.]
0.2
b

0.0
3
2.5
2.0
II
1.5
2
1.0
0.5 0.6 1 ~ fac− 0.51
0.0 0.4 I
0.2
0
0.0 0 200 400 600 800 1000 1200
0 100 200 300 400 0 100 200 300 400
Frequency [Hz] Frequency [Hz]
AC frequency f [Hz]
ac

Fig. 5. Base height oscillation and FFT: (a) (Vac [kV], fac
[Hz], U0 [m/s]) = (3, 110, 1.92), (b) (4, 110, 2.24), (c) (4, Fig. 6. Frequency–voltage diagram in classifying vari-
140, 2.77), and (d) (5, 140, 2.97). ous regimes.

Second, there exists the boundary for the maxi-

fields, the base height was H ob ¼ 1:40 mm just mum enhancement of stabilization without the
prior to the blowoff condition of U o0 jBO ¼ generation of streamers between regimes II and
1:28 m/s (dashed line). The increase in the base IV. Even though the flame stabilization can be
height can be attributed to the increase in the jet improved in regime IV, the effect is deteriorated
velocity to U0 = 1.92 m/s. as compared to regime II. The electrical power
At the same frequency of fac = 110 Hz, when consumption has been appreciably increased
the voltage and velocity increase to Vac = 4 kV when streamers were generated [30]. Thus, this
and U0 = 2.24 m/s, respectively, the oscillation boundary can be conceived as the maximum
behavior is shown in Fig. 5(b), which corresponds enhancement conditions for flame stabilization
to regime III. The result shows two distinct fre- considering power consumption. Finally, there is
quencies: one synchronized to the applied fre- the boundary between regimes II and III, where
quency and the other with the half of the the dependence of the detachment velocity on
frequency, exhibiting a period-doubling phenome- the applied voltage is linear and negligible,
non. Further, with the fixed voltage of Vac = 4 kV respectively.
and the increased frequency of fac = 140 Hz (c) To further investigate the effect of AC in
(regime II), the flame oscillation with half-fre- regime II, the rate of increase in the detachment
quency observed in case (b) disappears. When velocity with voltage was examined as a function
the voltage increases to Vac = 5 kV for fixed of frequency. The result shows that the slope has
fac = 140 Hz (d), again the period-doubling the dependence of dU 0 jD =dV ac  fac0:5 . By consid-
behavior can be observed and the flame detach- ering the linear dependence of the detachment
ment occurs in regime III. velocity on the applied voltage, the normalized
The boundary between regimes II and III in detachment velocity is plotted as a function of
Fig. 4 are based on the difference in the flame base V ac  fac0:5 in Fig. 7. The result shows an excellent
oscillation modes, which has the correlation with correlation with the best fit of U 0 jD =U o0 jBO ¼
the best fit of VII,III[kV] = 0.2718 + 0.03107  fac
[s1] with R = 0.997. The period-doubling behavior 6
Frequency [Hz]
BO

observed in the present premixed edge flame oscil- 90

Normalized velocity U | /U |
o

120
0

lation is interesting as compared to the frequency- 5 150

doubling behavior observed for the lifted flame
0 D

180
200
edge in nonpremixed laminar jets [26]. Together 4 250
with the complexity summarized in our previous 300
500
study [25] for the effect of AC for various flame 800
3
behaviors in nonpremixed flames, further 1000
Fitting
researches are required in the future to explain
the underlying physical mechanism for the present 2
observation.
In summary, the boundaries between the 1
regimes can be plotted in the frequency-voltage 0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140
0.5 −0.5
diagram (Fig. 6) for the classification of stabiliza- V
ac
*f
ac
[kV s ]
tion for laminar premixed flames. First, there exist
the threshold electric fields, below which the elec- Fig. 7. Correlation of normalized detachment velocity
tric fields minimally affect the flame detachment. with applied voltage and frequency in regime II.
1142 M.K. Kim et al. / Proceedings of the Combustion Institute 33 (2011) 1137–1144

0:5137 þ 0:0362  V ac ½kV  fac0:5 ½s0:5  with R = Applied voltage V

ac
[kV]
0.990. Note that the threshold condition is clearly 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
exhibited. (a) f = 150Hz (fixed)
ac
1.5
3.2. Base height and oscillation amplitude
1.0

Base height H [mm]

The ionic wind effect has been frequently iden- Max
tified as one of the key effects on flame behavior 0.5 Min

with electric fields. The flow velocity could be
modified by electric fields through the ionic wind
effect and then the detachment velocity can be
influenced. In this regard, the effect of DC on
the flame edge characteristics has been tested.
When negative (positive) DC is applied, the base
height decreases (increases) with the variation up
to 4.28% (+4.93%) at 14.7 (+14.7) kV and
the dependence is reasonably linear. Accordingly,
the detachment velocity improves (aggravates)
about +1.56% (3.9%), as mentioned previously.
These characteristics are in accordance with the
ionic wind effect. When positive DC is applied,
ions in the reaction zone will be accelerated
toward downstream and the associated bulk flow
could increase the base height. Simultaneously,
the boundary velocity gradient could increase,
resulting in the aggravation in the stabilization
characteristics. Note also that as the base height
increases, the edge can be leaner by the air
entrainment, which will weaken the flame.
Since AC electric fields keep on changing in
their polarity, the direction of the ionic wind effect
alternates. Subsequently, the stabilization charac-
teristics of flame could either be enhanced or dete-
riorated, assuming the ionic wind effect plays a
dominant role. Then, the flame is expected to be
detached when the maximum positive voltage acts
on the flame. In such a case, the detachment veloc-
ity is expected to decrease with AC voltage based
on the present experiment with DC. The result
(Fig. 4), however, shows that the detachment
velocity increases with AC voltage.
For the ionic wind effect to be activated, it
requires a delay time for the accelerated ions by
electric fields to transfer momentum to neutral
particles, that is, the collision response time tc
[16,17]. When AC frequency increases, the avail-
able time for the momentum transfer will
decrease. Consequently, the ionic wind effect will
be mitigated such that over a certain critical fre-
quency, the ionic wind effect could be minimal.
For a typical flame condition, the collision
response time has been estimated to be 14 ms
[17], corresponding to the frequency of 35 Hz con-
sidering the polarity change during one cycle of
AC. This implies that the ionic wind effect would
not influence much the flame behavior for the AC
frequency well over 35 Hz. For the present exper-
iment, the edge oscillation could be observed for
the frequency up to 200 Hz, which is much higher
than the corresponding frequency of the collision
response time.
b
Mean Regime II Regime III
0.0
V
ac
= 5kV (fixed)
1.5
1.0
0.5
(b) Regime III Regime II
0.0
60 80 100 120 140 160 180 200
Applied frequency f
ac
[Hz]
Fig. 8. Base height of oscillating flame with applied
voltage (a) and frequency (b) for U0 = 1.26 m/s.
Figure 8 shows the range of the base height for
U0 = 1.26 m/s with fac = 150 Hz (a) and Vac =
5 kV (b). The dashed line indicates H ob . When
the ionic wind effect is dominantly acting on this,
the height is expected to vary near H ob , exhibiting
both larger and smaller values by the polarity
change. The amplitude of oscillation increases
with voltage, which is in accordance with the ionic
wind effect. However, the base height decreases
with AC voltage up to 5 kV and levels off. At this
high frequency, the local velocity in front of flame
edge may not be influenced much based on the
collision response time. Thus, the result implies
that the base height behavior cannot be solely
attributed to the ionic wind effect and detailed
mechanism will be a future study.
The variation of base height with frequency (b)
shows that the mean height decreases with the fre-
quency. With the same analogy for the test by
varying the voltage (a), the decrease in the base
height improves the stabilization characteristics.
Note that the decrease in the amplitude of oscilla-
tion with frequency is reasonable.
3.3. Power consumption in regime II
To further understand the flame stabilization
behavior, the electric power consumption has
been determined. A current passing through the
nozzle electrode was measured at various AC volt-
ages and frequencies. Considering the phase dif-
ference between the current and voltage, the
active power has been evaluated as Pa[W] = -
Vac[kV]  Iac[mA]  cosh [25], where both the
voltage and frequency are represented in RMS
values and h is the phase difference. The evaluated
active powers at various applied AC voltages and
frequencies are shown in Fig. 9. Note that the
 M.K. Kim et al. / Proceedings of the Combustion Institute 33 (2011) 1137–1144 1143

0.40 Frequency [Hz] configuration. The detachment velocities have been

0.35
60 measured by varying the voltage and frequency of
90
120 applied AC. The results showed that the detach-
Active power P [W]

0.30 150 ment velocity increased appreciably by applying

180
a

0.25 200 AC electric fields. Four different regimes in the

250
300 flame detachment behavior have been classified.
0.20 500
800
In regime I, the threshold condition in electric fields
0.15 1000 has been observed, below which the effect of electric
0.10
fields on the detachment velocity is minimal. In
regime II for the moderate conditions of electric
0.05 fields, the detachment velocity increased linearly
0.00 with applied voltage and with the square root
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
dependence on the frequency. In regime III for high
Applied voltage V [kV] voltage with relatively low frequency, the detach-
ac
ment velocity becomes insensitive to the voltage
Fig. 9. Active power with applied voltage at various while it increased with the frequency. The oscilla-
frequencies. tion of the flame base in regime II was synchronized
to the applied frequency and in regime III synchro-
nized to the applied frequency embedded with the
10 half frequency mode. In regime IV for high voltage
and frequency, the detachment velocity decreased
with the applied electric fields by the generation of
BO

streamers which could disturb the flow fields near

(U | - U | ) / U |
o
0

Frequency [Hz] the nozzle exit. Finally, the detachment velocity in

120
1 regime II was correlated well with the active power.
BO

150
180
o
0

200
250
0 D

0.1
0.0001 0.001
Active power P [W]
Fig. 10. Enhancement in detachment velocity with
active power for regime II.
active power for the applied AC voltage less than
1 kV is not shown due to very low signal-to-noise
level. The active power increases monotonically
with applied AC voltage and frequency.
To investigate a relationship between the active
power and the enhancement of detachment
velocity by AC electric fields in regime II, the
enhancement ratio ðU 0 jD  U o0 jBO Þ=U o0 jBO is plot-
ted with the active power in Fig. 10. The result
shows a satisfactory correlation with the best fit
of ðU 0 jD  U o0 jBO Þ=U o0 jBO ¼ 11:21  P 0:504
a ½W0:504 
with R = 0.937. Note that as the active power
decreases, the deviation from the best fit amplifies
because of the aggravation in the signal-to-noise
ratio. The result implies that the active power
plays an important role on the enhancement of
the detachment velocity.
4. Concluding remarks
The stabilization of the laminar premixed bun-
sen flames has been investigated experimentally
by applying AC electric fields in the single-electrode
300
500 Acknowledgment
800
1000
This work was supported by AEA project/
KAUST.
0.01 0.1 1
a
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