Influence of Water Microdroplets on the Development of Hydrogen-Air Flame Instability in a Channel

Abstract

This paper studies the numerical analysis of the gaseous combustion process in a channel with a hydrogen-air mixture with the inflow of a fresh mixture seeded with microdroplets of water. The dynamics of microdroplets are described in the Lagrangian approximation, which makes it possible to identify the role of the local interaction between the droplets and the flame front. It is shown that the impact of droplets on the front can provoke the generation of disturbances of the flame front and intensify the development of the front’s instability, thereby causing an integral increase in the combustion rate. Using the spectral analysis of the structure of the front in the presence of microdroplets, the dynamics of the development of individual harmonics of the front’s disturbances is analyzed and the mechanisms of the evolution of the flame front under the influence of microdroplets of water are identified.