Influence of natural convection on stability of an inclined front propagation

Abstract

This research work may be considered as a continuation of a series of investigations concerning the influence of natural convection on stability of reaction fronts propagation. We consider an inclined propagating polymerization front. The governing equations consist of the heat equation, the equation for the depth of conversion for one-step chemical reaction and of the Navier-Stokes equations under the Boussinesq approximation. We first perform a formal asymptotic analysis in the limit of a large activation energy to get an approximate interface problem. Then, we fulfill the linear stability analysis of the stationary solution and find the perturbation equations. A meshless collocation method based on multiquadric radial basis functions has been applied for numerical simulations. The conditions of convective instabilities obtained are in good agreement with some previous studies. This shows that the proposed approach is accurate and that it helps in describing the influence of the propagation direction on stability of polymerization fronts.