Abstract
Turbulent flames with compositionally inhomogeneous mixtures are common in many combustion systems. Turbulent jet flames with a circular nozzle burner were used earlier to study the impact of inhomogeneous mixtures, and these studies showed that the nozzle radius affects the flame stability. Accordingly, planar turbulent flames with inhomogeneous turbulent jet are created in a concentric flow slot burner (CFSB) to avoid this effect in the present study. The stability characteristics, the mixing field structure, and the flame front structure were measured, and the correlations between stability and the mixing field structure were investigated. The mixture fraction field was measured in non-reacting jets at the nozzle exit using highly resolved Rayleigh scattering technique, and the flame front was measured in some selected turbulent flames using high-speed Planar Laser-Induced Fluorescence (PLIF) of OH technique. The data show strong correlations between flame stability and the range of mixture fraction fluctuations. The flames are highly stabilized within a mixing field environment with the range of fluctuation in mixture fraction close to the range of the flammability limits. The mixing field structure is also illustrated and discussed using a mixing regime diagram and showed that the scatter of the data of the different cases is consistent with the classified mixing regimes. Lean flames are stabilized in the current slot burner. The flame front structure topology varies consistently from thin, small curvature at the low level of turbulence and higher equivalence ratio to more wrinkled, larger curvature, but a thicker structure at a higher level of turbulence and lower equivalence ratio.