The Effects of High Centrifugal Acceleration on Bluff-Body Stabilized Premixed Flames

An experimental study is conducted on bluff-body stabilized premixed flames in a curved, square cross section duct. High flow velocities coupled with a small radius of curvature of the duct induce high centrifugal acceleration normal to the flame sheet. A cylindrical flame holder spans the width of the square cross section and is positioned at the channel midheight. Flame shear layers are stabilized on the radially inward (upper) and outward (lower) edges of the flame holder. Side-view high-speed Schlieren images and high-speed pressure measurements are captured. Static stability, overall pressure loss, and statistics and velocimetry results from the Schlieren images are reported, and results are compared to a straight configuration with no centrifugal acceleration. Two bluff-body diameters are studied to show the effect of flame holder diameter on static stability. For the curved configuration, blowout velocities are higher for the smaller bluff-body diameter, likely due to flow acceleration effects. Blowout velocities are lower for the curved configuration compared to the straight configuration which may be due to the destabilizing Rayleigh-Taylor (RT) effect on the upper flame layer. Overall pressure loss is slightly higher for the curved configuration than the straight configuration. High-speed Schlieren results show centrifugal acceleration causes significant structural and velocimetric asymmetry in the bluff-body wake. In the curved configuration, the upper flame layer displays destabilizing RT instabilities, and the lower flame layer displays stabilizing RT effects. The upper flame shows vigorous RT instabilities which broaden the flame brush and sustain a flame leading edge independent of inlet Reynolds number or velocity. Conversely, the lower flame exhibits suppression of Kelvin-Helmholtz and flame-generated instabilities in the wake, which confines the flame brush and significantly reduces transverse flame velocities. The lower flame edge profile moves toward the channel centerline with increasing inlet Reynolds number. The upper flame in the curved configuration shows higher flame edge velocities than the straight configuration while the lower flame shows velocities closer to zero. The empirical constant to the power law relation for upper flame edge velocities agrees with RT-dominated flame growth theory for this experimental scale and agrees with other RT-dominated flame studies.