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Laser shadowgraph study of early flame propagation in swirling flows near the lean misfire limit.

The effects of swirling flow and spark locations on the specific rate of growth of flame area, the flame speed and the convection velocity are investigated experimentally in a constant volume vessel near the lean misfire limit for an equivalence ratio of 0.645 using the shadowgraph technique. The circular and the elliptical models are used as flame contours to calculate the flame speed and the convection velocity. The circular model indicates that the flame speed decreases as the swirl flow decays and as the spark location is moved towards the center of the combustion chamber. The modified elliptical model shows the same result for the average flame speed $S\sb{ws}$. Both models show an overlap in convection velocity when comparison is made at a given spark location for different swirl levels because of cyclic variation; even though the average is higher for higher swirl level. The specific rate of growth of flame area (${1\over A}{dA\over dt}$) is obtained using three models for flame area A: (i) 2-D flame area $A\sb{f}$ measured from the photographs, (ii) spherical flame geometry model, and (iii) ellipsoidal geometry model. The stretch factor $K=({\delta\sb{l}\over u\sb{l}}) ({1\over A}{dA\over dt})$ at 0.5 ms from ignition time for the 2-D and the spherical models at ${r\over R}=0.68$ was within the range 0.63-0.97 and at ${r\over R}=0.55$ was within the range 0.5-0.59. The stretch factor for the ellipsoidal model at ${r\over R}=0.68$ was within the range 0.53-1.05 and at ${r\over R}=0.55$ was within the range 0.46-0.53. All three models for flame area indicate that the specific rate of growth of flame area and stretch factor at 0.5 ms from ignition time decrease as the swirl flow decays and as the spark location approaches the center of the combustion chamber.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:uottawa.ca/oai:ruor.uottawa.ca:10393/9577
Date January 1995
CreatorsSheikhi, Abdolreza.
ContributorsMilane, R.,
PublisherUniversity of Ottawa (Canada)
Source SetsUniversité d’Ottawa
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeThesis
Format241 p.

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