Effects of pressure on propagation characteristics of methane-air edge flames within two-dimensional mixing layers: A numerical study

Abstract

The effects of pressure on propagation of laminar edge flames were numerically investigated using an OpenFOAM-6 platform developed with multicomponent transport properties. With various equivalence ratio gradients (∇ϕ) as inlet conditions, propagation of non-stationary edge flames in two-dimensional mixing layers at three pressures (0.5 bar, 1.0 bar and 2.0 bar) were studied. The heat release rate increases with increasing pressure and decreases with increasing ∇ϕ due to flame curvature and stretch. The linearity between flame curvature K and ∇ϕ is revealed. The K and slope of this linearity are both larger under high pressure. Flame stretch is dominated by flow strain and flame curvature rather than unsteady flame motion. With increasing ∇ϕ and pressure, stretch rate κ shows increasing feature due to larger curvature and stronger flow strain. The obvious negative linear dependence of local flame speed Sd on κ is revealed under three pressures. The range of Karlovitz number under three pressures are 0.2~1.4, indicating that edge flames are weakly stretched and the linear correlation between Sd and κ could be explained by weakly stretched flame theory. Compared with positive dependence of mass diffusion term Sdd on K, the dominating negative dependence of reaction term Sdr on K leads to negative correlation of Sd with K. Global flame speed UF shows non-monotonic feature with increasing ∇ϕ under three pressures, which is mainly due to non-monotonic upstream velocity reduction Udrop. Flame stretch is important for the shift from critical gradient ∇ϕcd (for maximum Udrop) to smaller ∇ϕcF (for maximum UF) and stronger decreasing feature of UF thanUdrop under large ∇ϕ.