Paramètres de similitude pour la combustion diphasique

Scaling is an important issue in many practical applications. While some scaling laws are already applied in combustion, none of them addresses the phenomena involving the liquid phase (e.g. in a liquid-fueled burner). The goal of this paper is to study systematically those phenomena and to establish scaling laws that take the liquid phase into account. A dimensional analysis is performed, leading to the expression of four dimensionless groups. The first one describes the combustion mode and the global aspect of the flame. The next two address the stabilisation of the flame and the last one is related to the atomiser efficiency. In the second part of the paper, those dimensionless groups are applied to practical devices. The flexibility of this analysis is demonstrated using different kinds of injectors and fuels. In each case, the four dimensionless groups correctly predict some physical characteristics of the flame such as its mode of stabilisation, lift-off etc. Finally another practical application is studied: the design of a small scale burner using the proposed scaling laws.