Influence of weak electric fields on the flame structure

A two-dimensional numerical model of a laminar premixed methane-air flame affected by weak direct-current electric field has been built based on the ANSYS CFX hydrodynamic solver. The chemical transformations in the model are described by the GRI-Mech scheme and are solved within the CHEMKIN package. Both packages exchange data during the runtime via ANSYS CFX programming interface. The steady-state simulations of flame without electric fields show a good agreement between measured and modeled flame parameters such as maximal temperature, normal flame propagation speed and the height of the flame. The model allows the qualitative physical interpretation of the electric field effects on the flame by the action of the volume force arising due to the charges separation in the external electric field. The model reproduces the experimentally observed increase in combustion completeness and the decrease in carbon monoxide concentration in the exhaust gas that both result from application of an electric field.