The objective of the present program is to study the structure and response of steady and unsteady laminar premixed and nonpremixed flames in reduced and elevated pressure environments through (a) non-intrusive experimentation, (b) computational simulation using detailed flame and kinetic codes, and (c) asymptotic analysis with reduced kinetic mechanisms. During the reporting period progress has been made in the following projects: (1) a theoretical and experimental study of unsteady diffusion flames; (2) a computational and experimental study of hydrogen/air diffusion flames at sub- and super-atmospheric pressures; (3) an asymptotic analysis of the structure of premixed flames with volumetric heat loss; (4) asymptotic analyses of ignition in the supersonic hydrogen/air mixing layer with reduced mechanisms; (5) a new numerical algorithm for generating the ignition-extinction S-curves. A total of three reprints are appended.

A work on turbulent premixed combustion is important because of increased concern about the environmental impact of combustion and the search for new combustion concepts and technologies. An improved understanding of lean fuel turbulent premixed flames must play a central role in the fundamental science of these new concepts. Lean premixed flames have the potential to offer ultra-low emission levels, but they are notoriously susceptible to combustion oscillations. Thus, sophisticated control measures are inevitably required. The editors' intent is to set out the modeling aspects in the field of turbulent premixed combustion. Good progress has been made on this topic, and this cohesive volume contains contributions from international experts on various subtopics of the lean premixed flame problem.

"This thesis examines preferential diffusion effects in laminar and turbulent premixed combustion. Stretched, fuel-lean, laminar flames of methane, propane and hydrogen are studied experimentally in a counter-flow flame configuration to investigate the effect of Lewis number on stretched flames. Laminar flame results show that a maximum reference flame speed exists for mixtures with Le >= 1 at lower flame-stretch values than the extinction stretch rate. A continually-increasing reference flame speed is measured for Le “ 1 mixtures until extinction occurs when the flame is constrained by the stagnation point.Turbulent counter-flow flame experiments are then performed for these mixtures, using high-blockage turbulence-generating plates to produce turbulence intensities on the order of u'/sLo = 1 to 10. Measurements of average and instantaneous velocity within the turbulent flame are performed by time-resolved particle image velocimetry measurements. Average and instantaneous flame front position is also measured by Rayleigh spectroscopy.Measurements of average turbulent burning velocity demonstrate the ambiguity in definitions of the burning velocity and the difficulty of examining turbulent flame chemistry using averaged measurements. Instantaneous statistics are shown to be superior tools for studying turbulent combustion. The probability-density functions (PDF) of the local flamelet burning velocities for Le >= 1 mixtures show that the instantaneous flamelet burning velocities increase with increasing turbulence intensity and flame stretch. The PDF for the Le ~= 1 mixture has a sharply skewed shape at high turbulence intensity and has a sharp drop-off in probability at a velocity that corresponds with the experimentally-measured maximum reference flame speed from the laminar flame experiments. In contrast, in the Le “ 1 turbulent flames, the most-probable instantaneous flamelet burning velocities increase with increasing turbulence intensity and can significantly exceed the maximum reference flame speed measured in counter-flow laminar flames at extinction.These results are reinforced by instantaneous flame position measurements. Flame front location PDFs show the most probable flame location to be linked to velocity PDFs. Furthermore, hydrogen PDFs are recognizably skewed as u'/sLo increases, indicating a tendency for the Le “ 1 mixture to propagate farther into the unburned reactants. These results support the leading edge theory of premixed turbulent flame propagation for flames in which preferential diffusion effects are expected.In the study of turbulent flames, this work promotes the use of local, instantaneous statistics as a tool for describing experimental results and studying fuel chemistry." --