Experimental Study on Laminar Flame Speeds and Markstein Length of Methane-Air Mixtures at Atmospheric Conditions

Abstract

Accurate value of laminar flame speed is an important parameter of combustible mixtures. In this respect, experimental data are very useful for modeling improvement and validating chemical kinetic mechanisms. To achieve this, an experimental characterization on spherically expanding flames propagation of methane-air mixtures were carried out. Tests were conducted in constant volume cylindrical combustion chamber to measure stretched, unstretched laminar flame speed, laminar burning velocity, and flame stretch effect as quantified by the associated Markstein lengths. The mixtures of methane-air were ignited at extensive ranges of lean-to-rich equivalence ratios, under ambient pressure and temperature. This is achieved by high speed schlieren cine-photography for flames observation in the vessel. The results showed that the unstretched laminar burning velocity increased and the peak value of the unstretched laminar burning velocity shifted to the richer mixture side with the increase of equivalence ratio. The flame propagation speed showed different trends at different equivalence ratio for tested mixtures. It was found that the Markstein length was increased with the increase of equivalence ratio.