A comparison of the structures of lean and rich axisymmetric laminar Bunsen flames: application of local rectangular refinement solution-adaptive gridding

Abstract

Axisymmetric laminar methane–air Bunsen flames are computed for two equivalence ratios: lean (Φ=0.776), in which the traditional Bunsen cone forms above the burner; and rich (Φ=1.243), in which the premixed Bunsen cone is accompanied by a diffusion flame halo located further downstream. Because the extremely large gradients at premixed flame fronts greatly exceed those in diffusion flames, their resolution requires a more sophisticated adaptive numerical method than those ordinarily applied to diffusion flames. The local rectangular refinement (LRR) solution-adaptive gridding method produces robust unstructured rectangular grids, utilizes multiple-scale finite-difference discretizations, and incorporates Newton's method to solve elliptic partial differential equation systems simultaneously. The LRR method is applied to the vorticity–velocity formulation of the fully elliptic governing equations, in conjunction with detailed chemistry, multicomponent transport and an optically-thin radiation model. The computed lean flame is lifted above the burner, and this liftoff is verified experimentally. For both lean and rich flames, grid spacing greatly influences the Bunsen cone's position, which only stabilizes with adequate refinement. In the rich configuration, the oxygen-free region above the Bunsen cone inhibits the complete decay of CH4, thus indirectly initiating the diffusion flame halo where CO oxidizes to CO2. In general, the results computed by the LRR method agree quite well with those obtained on equivalently refined conventional grids, yet the former require less than half the computational resources.