Correlation of turbulent burning velocities of ethanol-air, measured in a fan-stirred bomb up to 1.2 MPa

The turbulent burning velocity is defined by the mass rate of burning and this also requires that the associated flame surface area should be defined. Previous measurements of the radial distribution of the mean reaction progress variable in turbulent explosion flames provide a basis for definitions of such surface areas for turbulent burning velocities. These inter-relationships, in general, are different from those for burner flames. Burning velocities are presented for a spherical flame surface, at which the mass of unburned gas inside it is equal to the mass of burned gas outside it. These can readily be transformed to burning velocities based on other surfaces. The measurements of the turbulent burning velocities presented are the mean from five different explosions, all under the same conditions. These cover a wide range of equivalence ratios, pressures and rms turbulent velocities for ethanol-air mixtures. Two techniques are employed, one based on measurements of high speed schlieren images, the other on pressure transducer measurements. There is good agreement between turbulent burning velocities measured by the two techniques. All the measurement are generalised in plots of burning velocity normalised by the effective unburned gas rms velocity as a function of the Karlovitz stretch factor for different strain rate Markstein numbers. For a given value of this stretch factor a decrease in Markstein number increases the normalised burning velocity. Comparisons are made with the findings of other workers. (C) 2010 The Combustion Institute. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.