Chapter VIII. The Determining Role of Chain Combustion in Flame Propagation

Until recently, it was attempted to explain the flame propagation without considering the chain nature of combustion, but the contradictions between theory and experiments failed to be explained. The difference in the roles of reaction chains and self-heating was not considered, as well as the role of heterogeneous chain termination. These issues are addressed in this chapter. Greater uncertainty in the quantitative interpretation of gas combustion is due to the limited information on heterogeneous reactions of active particles and the nonstationary state of the surface. Under these limitations, the propagation of flame of the 4H₂ + O₂ mixture was simulated. To reduce the role of the nonstationary state of the surface, conditions for the limiting role of diffusion of H atoms to the walls were chosen. A method for solving differential equations and conditions for replacing the Laplace operator with an averaging rate constant for the chemisorption of atomic hydrogen are described. The flat flame approximation is used. The flame characteristics for their comparison with the results of experiments conducted with the participation of the author were obtained. Experimental results showing the strong dependence of all characteristics of flame propagation on the changing properties of the surface are presented.