An experimental and numerical study on the stability and propagation of laminar premixed flames

The laminar flame speed is a very important property of laminar premixed flames, especially for the validation of chemical kinetics and modeling of turbulent combustion. The counterflow technique is one of the best approaches for the experimental determination of this property because it allows for the establishment of planar, nearly adiabatic, steady, quasi-one dimensional flames that are subjected to well-defined aerodynamic strain rate. However non-linear effects as the strain rate goes to zero lead to overprediction of the laminar flame speed. In the present study these non-linear effects were investigated experimentally and numerically and significant overprediction was verified, particularly for weakly-burning hydrogen/air flames. Subsequently effort was made to establish and study flame properties at a very-low strain rate regime and qualitative and quantitative conclusions were drawn for the stability of the flame surface subjected to very low aerodynamic strain rate, coupled with the effect of gravity and preferential diffusion. A new experimental technique was developed, based on the observation that if a laminar premixed flame undergoes a transition from planar to Bunsen the strain rate changes from positive to negative values and a near-zero strain-rate regime is established. Flame speed measurements were conducted by using LDV for this regime; the flame speed measured is the true laminar flame speed and this is the first time that this property is directly and experimentally measured. Particle Streak velocimetry was developed to evaluate the strain-rates for near-zero strain-rate regime. The laminar flame speed was measured for atmospheric methane/air, ethane/air and propane/air mixtures for the whole range of equivalence ratios; the new data are lower when compared to previous ones and the overprediction is at the order of 15%.