An experimental study of freely propagating turbulent propane/air flames in stratified inhomogeneous mixtures

Experiments of freely propagating turbulent flames in nonhomogeneous propane/air mixtures are performed for various initial distributions of heterogeneities and compared with homogeneous cases. For various flame propagation times, laser tomography and planar laser-induced fluorescence on acetone are performed simultaneously to characterize the flame-front structure as well as the local mixture fraction in front of the flame. The two-dimensional scalar fields are characterized by a mean stratified mixture fraction field, symmetrical around ignition, and by a fluctuation field. The scalar scales are determined from the spatial autocorrelation coefficients and are compared with the turbulence scales, because the turbulence grid is responsible for the mixing. From the flame contours, global parameters (flame radii and wrinkling ratio) and local curvature distributions are also studied to evaluate the contribution of heterogeneities on the topology of the turbulent flame front. At the early stages of flame propagation, the flame structure is weakly affected by the local heterogeneities. Then, at higher propagation times, the heterogeneities tend to smooth the wrinkling produced by the turbulent flow field. A characteristic scale of flame curvature is then compared with the integral length scale of the flow field, L-T, and scalar scale L-Z. For heterogeneous conditions, the flame front presents small wrinkles with positive and negative curvatures equally distributed all around the flame with a characteristic size strongly depending on L-Z.