The characteristics of turbulent propane flames established by planar fuel-jet injection from the center of a slender cylinder and stabilized in its wake formation region are presented and discussed. Isothermal and reacting investigations addressed the effects of combustion on large-scale vortex shedding and facilitated an examination of the impact of fuel injection and heat release on the near-wake aerodynamics. The turbulent velocity and temperature fields were measured with laser velocimetry and thin digitally compensated high-temperature thermocouples over a range of fuel injection ratios and two Reynolds numbers of 8520 and 14,285. A multilayered vorticity distribution, a threefold decrease of the mean and root-meansquare cross-stream entraining velocity, and a fourfold elongation of the primary recirculation, composed of a complex system of multiple vortices, were some of the effects of combustion on near-wake development. The study provided information on the operation of this cylinder-type burner and exposed operational differences and similarities in relation to axisymmetric and other slender bluff-body stabilizers.
Two-dimensional large-eddy simulations of the wakes were also performed, employing a partial equilibrium scheme and a two-(correlated)-scalar exponential probability density function (PDF) turbulence/ chemistry model which was applied at the subgrid level. An anisotropic subgrid eddy viscosity derived from scale similarity between resolved and subgrid fluctuations together with two equations for the turbulence kinetic and scalar energies completed the subgrid closure and supplied the scalar covariances in the PDF formulation. The present investigations suggested that favorable agreement between computations and experiments was achieved with respect to identified trends in several important performance parameters such as entrainment rates, recirculation and flame lengths, temperature and turbulence distributions, and large-scale vortex structure activity, supporting the extension of the present reactive model to include the effects of three dimensionality.