Laminar Flames

General


This field deals with the "slow" burning of flames in gases. In such cases the propagation of flame fronts is controlled by the diffusion of heat into the unburnt gases and not by the propagation of shock waves. Examples of such combustion are the burning candle or a flame on a gas cooker.

 

Local Interest

 

The area of research that is of interest here is the development of a better theoretical understanding of how flames respond to complex mixing flows. This is in order to build towards a better understanding of the propagation of flames in a turbulent environment. One example of this is the study of flames through an array of periodic vortices in a stagnation point flow. This flow combines features observed in turbulence of string localised regions of vorticity in a region of converging flows.

 

Another area of interest is the investigation of the effects that different Lewis numbers (ratios of the diffusivities of the fuel and oxidant to the diffusivity of heat in the gas) have on the shape and propagation rate of flames in premixed gases.

 

In all the work we use simple models for the combustion chemistry, and usually assume low heat release rates.

 

Principle Researchers