Effects of the external turbulence on centrally-ignited spherical unstable Ch4/H2/air flames in the constant-volume combustion bomb

In the present study, we conducted experiments to investigate the effects of external turbulence on the development of spherical H-2/CH4/air unstable flames developments at two different equivalence ratios associated with different turbulent intensities using a spherical constant-volume turbulent combustion bomb and high speed schlieren photography technology. Flame front morphology and acceleration process were recorded and different effects of weak external turbulent flow field and intrinsic flame instability on the unstable flame propagation were compared. Results showed the external turbulence has a great influence on the unstable flame propagation under rich fuel conditions. For fuel-lean premixed flames, however, the effects of external turbulence on the morphology of the cellular structure on the flame front was not that obvious. Critical radius decreased firstly and then kept almost unchanged with the augment of the turbulence intensity. This indicated the dominating inhibiting effect of flame stretch on the turbulent premixed flame at the initial stage of the flame front development. Beyond the critical radius, the acceleration exponent was found increasing with the enhancement of initial turbulence intensity for fuel-lean premixed flames. For fuel-rich conditions, however, the initial turbulence intensity had little effect on acceleration exponent. In order to evaluate the important impact of the intrinsic flame instability and external turbulent flow field for spherical propagating premixed flames, intrinsic flame instability scale and average diameter of vortex tube were calculated. Intrinsic flame instability scale decreased greatly and then stayed unchanged with the propagation of the flame front. The comparison between intrinsic flame instability scale and average diameter of vortex tube demonstrated that the external turbulent flow filed will be more important for the evolution of wrinkle structure in the final stage of the flame propagation, when the turbulence intensity was more than 0.404 m/s. (C) 2019 Hydrogen Energy Publications LLC. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.