Numerical investigation of steady laminar flame propagation in a circular tube

✍ Scribed by Shih Tuen Lee; Chien Hsiung Tsai

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 1994
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 457 KB
• Volume: 99
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0010-2180
• DOI: 10.1016/0010-2180(94)90040-x

✦ Synopsis

The steady propagation of a premixed laminar flame in circular tubes with adiabatic wall and isothermal wall is numerically investigated in the present study. It is assumed that the flow is axisymmetric and the flame chemistry is modeled by an one-step overall reaction which simulates the reaction of a lean methane-air mixture. The numerical results show that the flame propagating steadily in a tube can take two distinct shapes: tulip shape and mushroom shape. It is found that, in a insulated tube, the tulip-shaped flame is a more robust manifestation than the mushroom-shaped flame, and is the primary mode of the solutions. The opposite is true in a tube with isothermal wall. The effect of the gravity along the .tube axis is also studied. It is found that the gravity not only modifies the flame speed, it also affects the flame shape. For example, under zero-gravity, only tulip-shaped flame can be found in a small tube with adiabatic wall, but under the normal gravitational force, both mushroom-shaped flame and tulip-shaped flame exist.