Abstract:
This paper describes recent numerical and experimental studies of the interactions between propagating premixed flame and solid obstructions. The study has been performed in a range of laboratory platforms where controlled premixed flames are set to propagate past solid obstacles and/or baffle plates strategically positioned in vented combustion chambers. Researchers have studied the effects of various parameters such as obstacle shape, blockage ratio, repeated obstacles, venting area, and combustor size where the length of the combustion chamber in the direction of the propagating flame is varied with respect to the chamber's width or diameter. Computational approaches used in simulating propagating premixed flames range from simple ones that are numerically feasible for practical applications such as those based on Reynolds Averaged Navier Stokes (RANS) equations to complex and numerically very expensive such as Large Eddy Simulation (LES) methods. Experimentally, high speed images of the propagating flames as well pressure-time traces are widely available for a range of experimental conditions but flow field measurements are less common due to the seeding difficulty associated with such transient processes. This paper reviews also recent experiments where the flame front was imaged was imaged using laser induced fluorescence (LIF) from the hydroxyl radical.