Methane flames in a jet impinging onto a wall

Abstract

Traditionally, research has focused on positive stretch in the stagnation flow and negative stretch along the Bunsen flame. Only a very limited amount of research has been devoted to studying the behavior of a conical Bunsen flame established in a stagnation flow, which is significantly affected by the combined effects of the curvature stretch and the aerodynamic straining. This investigation is aimed at studying the characteristics of laminar conical premixed flames in an impinging jet flow experimentally and theoretically. First, we analyze the transport processes of a nonreactive impinging jet flow numerically. For lower burner-to-plate distance, the potential core becomes concave at the top. Hence, a conical Bunsen flame established in such a flow field may suffer positive flow stretch. The predicted flame shapes using a simple model incorporated with the numerical results agree well with the experimental observations. Flame shapes exhibit double-solution characteristics in a certain range of methane concentrations. Experimentally, by following different paths of adjusting methane concentration (decreasing from rich to lean or increasing from lean to rich), two different flame configurations (planar or conical flame) may exist at the same flow conditions, namely burner-to-plate distance, inlet velocity, and methane concentration. At the higher (or lower) critical methane concentration, the transition from a flat flame to a conical flame (or from a conical flame to a flat flame) occurs. The calculation of stretch and measurement of flame temperature for the low inlet velocity, 0.8 m/s, show that the stretch of a conical flame established in a stagnation flow is negative (dominated by the flame curvature). However, it is important to emphasize that at high velocity, e.g., U in = 1.6 m/s, a negatively stretched flame tip can suffer positive flow stretch. This significant finding has been verified in the experiment since the conical flame tip is higher than the positively stretched flat flame.