The behavior and structure of laminar hydrocarbon flames which propagate parallel to the direction of a periodic gradient of mixture composition was studied both experimentally, using a specially designed burner, and computationally, using a planar numerical model. The variations in local mixture composition led to the formation of wrinkled flames, the structure of which were dependent on both chemical and physical parameters of the particular flame configuration. A qualitative study using chemiluminescence imaging of stratified methane and propane flames was conducted to characterize their response to variations in overall mixture composition, strength and length scale of the stratification, and flow field velocity. A two-dimensional numerical study was performed to assess the abilities of reduced global kinetic models to predict the behavior of stratified flames in comparison to computations performed using detailed mechanisms. It was observed that the reduced kinetic models display a lower limit of stratification length scale, which is on the order of the laminar flame thickness, below which accurate prediction of flame behavior is no longer possible. Under these conditions, the computed flames were observed to undergo a deformation which was much larger than the wrinkling imposed by the compositional variation, and was unsteady in time. Further analysis of these deformed flames suggested that a potential cause of this behavior was a failure of the reduced kinetics to capture the increase in local reaction rate attributed to stratification, and the inability of the driving reactions to counterbalance the incoming mass flux of fuel led to destabilization of the flame front. A preliminary analysis of the local stretch rates of the wrinkled flames was also conducted, and it was observed that even with a uniform incoming flow field, variations in mixture composition were capable of stretching the flames. The stretch behavior observed was one of alternating flame stretch and flame compression, which reached very large magnitudes over short distances.

Combustion Theory delves deeper into the science of combustion than most other texts and gives insight into combustions from a molecular and a continuum point of view. The book presents derivations of the basic equations of combustion theory and contains appendices on the background of subjects of thermodynamics, chemical kinetics, fluid dynamics, and transport processes. Diffusion flames, reactions in flows with negligible transport and the theory of pre-mixed flames are treated, as are detonation phenomena, the combustion of solid propellents, and ignition, extinction, and flamibility pehnomena.

Lean burning of premixed gases is considered to be a promising combustion technology for future clean and highly efficient gas turbine combustors. Yet researchers face several challenges in dealing with premixed turbulent combustion, from its nonlinear multiscale nature and the impact of local phenomena to the multitude of competing models. Filling

This volume collects the results of a workshop held at Aachen, West-Germany, Oct. 12 - Oct. 14, 1981. The purpose in bringing together scientists actively working in the field of numerical methods in flame propagation was two-fold: 1. To confront them with recent results obtained by large ac­ tivation-energy asymptotics and to check these numerically. 2. To compare different numerical codes and different trans­ port models for flat flame calculations with complex che­ mistry. Two test problems were formulated by the editors to meet these objectives. Test problem A was an unsteady propagating flat flame with one-step chemistry and Lewis number different from unity while test problem B was the steady, stoichiometric hy­ drogen-air flame with prescribed complex chemistry. The parti­ cipants were asked to solve one or both test problems and to present recent work of their own choice at the meeting. The results of the numerical calculations of test problem A are challenging just as much for scientists employing numerical me­ thods as for those devoted to large activation-energy asympto­ tics: Satisfactory agreement between the five different groups were obtained only for two out of six cases, those with Lewis number Le equal to one. The very strong oscillations that oc­ cur at Le = 2 and a nondimensional activation energy of 20 were accurately resolved only by one group. This case is par­ ticular interesting because the asymptotic theory so far pre­ dicts instability but not oscillations.