This thesis presents pioneering experimental and numerical studies on three aspects of the combustion characteristics of lean premixed syngas/air flames, namely the laminar flame speed, extinction limit and flammability limit. It illustrates a new extinction exponent concept, which enriches the combustion theory. Above all, the book provides the following: a) a series of carefully measured data and theoretical analyses to reveal the intrinsic mechanisms of the fuel composition effect on the propagation and extinction of lean syngas/air flames; b) a mixing model and correlation to predict the laminar flame speed of multi-component syngas fuels, intended for engineering computations; c) a new “extinction exponent” concept to describe the critical effects of chemical kinetics on the extinction of lean premixed syngas/air flames; and d) the effects and mechanism of the dilution of incombustible components on lean premixed syngas/air flames and the preferential importance among the thermal, chemical and diffusion effects.

"The continued combustion of fossil fuels to fulfill global energy demand is being questioned because of the well-known problem of greenhouse-gas (GHG) emissions, which introduces new carbon, in the form of carbon dioxide, into the environment causing climate change. However, the inherent advantages of combustion-based engines, e.g., energy and power densities, make it hard for other power systems to compete; hence, a leading strategy is to avoid burning fossil fuels by using alternative renewable fuels, such as hydrogen and renewable biofuels. Adaptability with alternative renewable fuels that have variable compositions is referred to as fuel flexibility, which is an important parameter of next-generation combustor design. However, fuel flexibility significantly affects combustor operability properties, such as blowout, flashback, and dynamic stability, mainly due to variations in turbulent burning rates. Changing the fuel and oxidizing-gas mixture composition affects flame characteristics and burning rates through changing: (1) mixture reactivity, which is represented by unstretched laminar flame speed, and (2) mixture diffusivity, i.e., the diffusivity of the deficient reactant and diffusivity of heat. The disparity between thermal and mass diffusivities at the flame front is known as "differential diffusion", which causes stretch sensitivity, and thermal-diffusive instabilities, in flame-front propagation, and is represented by Lewis number, a ratio of thermal-to-mass diffusivities.This thesis investigates the effects of differential diffusion and stretch sensitivity on propagation, stabilization, and structure of lean turbulent premixed flames in the thin reaction zone regime. In the context of fuel flexibility, various fuels and oxidizer-inert mixtures are used to form mixtures with distinct effective Lewis numbers, through changing both fuel diffusivity and thermal diffusivity of the mixture. In these experiments, the unstretched laminar flame speed is kept constant during mixture dilution, and hydrogen enrichment of hydrocarbon flames, through changing the mixture equivalence ratio, in order to minimize the effects of chemistry. Furthermore, bulk-flow properties and the temperature boundary condition are kept constant; hence, the study highlights the effects of differential diffusion. The experiments are carried out using strained counter-flow flames, in order to study the effects of both components of the flame stretch, i.e., hydrodynamic strain and curvature. Local instantaneous statistics of various flame parameters within the imaged plane are quantified using high-speed particle image velocimetry (PIV) and Mie scattering flame tomography at various levels of turbulence intensity. These statistics include flame location, flame velocity, and flame-front topology, such as flame stretch, flame-front curvature, and flame surface area.The statistics of various parameters of turbulent flames with distinct effective Lewis number show that the effects of differential diffusion on the burning rates and the structure of turbulent premixed flames are important in highly turbulent flames in the thin reaction zone of combustion. Furthermore, these results are not dependent on the fuel or oxidizing-gas mixture and can be described fully by the effective Lewis number and turbulence intensity. In addition, at constant turbulence intensities, differential diffusion increases the burning rate of turbulent flames in thermo-diffusively unstable mixtures through two main mechanisms: (1) increasing the local flamelet displacement velocity, and (2) increasing the flame surface area. This thesis shows the need to advance the combustion theory to produce models that can capture the effects of differential diffusion for flames in real-world combustion systems, in order to predict the performance of future fuel-flexible combustors. The experimental results of this thesis provide a valuable dataset for the validation of such theories." --

Developing clean, sustainable energy systems is a pre-eminent issue of our time. Most projections indicate that combustion-based energy conversion systems will continue to be the predominant approach for the majority of our energy usage. Unsteady combustor issues present the key challenge associated with the development of clean, high-efficiency combustion systems such as those used for power generation, heating or propulsion applications. This comprehensive study is unique, treating the subject in a systematic manner. Although this book focuses on unsteady combusting flows, it places particular emphasis on the system dynamics that occur at the intersection of the combustion, fluid mechanics and acoustic disciplines. Individuals with a background in fluid mechanics and combustion will find this book to be an incomparable study that synthesises these fields into a coherent understanding of the intrinsically unsteady processes in combustors.