Optical Analysis and Qualitative Discrimination of Vortex-Flame Interaction in a Plane Premixed Shear Layer

Abstract

To obtain practical schemes of vortex-flame interactions, a series of organized eddies formed in the plane premixed shear layer is investigated, instead of a single vortex ring or a single vortex tube. The plane premixed shear layer is first formed between two parallel uniform propane-air mixture streams. For getting clear qualitative pictures of vortex-flame interactions in the plane premixed shear layer, two extreme ignition points are assigned; one is assigned at the center of an organized eddy where the vortex motion plays an important role, the other at the midpoint between two adjacent organized eddies where the rolling-up motion prevails. A premixed flame is initiated by an electric discharge at one of the two assigned points and propagates either in the large scale organized eddy or along the interface between two uniform mixture streams. Propagation and deformation processes of the flame are observed using the simultaneously two-directional and high-speed Schlieren photography. The tangential velocity of organized eddy and the equivalence ratio of premixed shear flow are varied as two main parameters. The outline of propagating flame after the midpoint ignition is numerically analyzed by superposing the flame propagation having a constant burning velocity on the vortex flow field simulated with the discrete vortex method. The results obtained show that there exists another type of vortex-flame interaction in the plane shear layer in addition to the vortex bursting, and that it is caused by the rolling-up motion particular to the coherent structure in the plane shear layer and is simply named the vortex boosting. It is qualitatively concluded therefore that, in the ordinary turbulent premixed flames formed in the plane premixed shear layer, these two fundamental N. Ohiwa (B) · Y. Ishino 360 Flow Turbulence Combust (2006) 77: 359-380 vortex-flame interactions get tangled with each other to augment the propagation velocity. An empirical expression which qualitatively takes into account of the effects of both vortex and chemical properties is finally proposed.Key words turbulent premixed flame · plane shear layer · organized eddy · vortex-flame interaction · discrete vortex method · high speed schlieren photography