FLAME SPEEDS IN OSCILLATING GASES IN A TUBE

Abstract

Flow disturbances such as turbulence, have long been known to have important effects on flame propagation affecting in particular the flame speed. Due to the difficulty associated with measuring turbulence and describing its effect on such a complex phenomenon as a flame, it has been pointed out that useful information can be obtained by restricting the study to the interactions of a simple form of flow disturbance and a flame.

This paper describes some experimental studies on the influence of oscillations on an otherwise normal flame propagating from either end of a tube open at one end. The experiments reveal that higher flame speeds invariably result with the imposition of oscillations irrespective of the strength of the combustible mixture.The flame speed increases lineraly with frequency of oscillations and the extent of this increase is determined by mixture strength. Rkb mixtures show increasing flame speeds with increasing amplitudes while Jean mixtures exhibit a critical amplitude at which maximum flame speed occurs.