Burke–Schumann limit

In combustion, Burke–Schumann limit, or large Damköhler number limit, is the limit of infinitely fast chemistry (or in other words, infinite Damköhler number), named after S.P. Burke and T.E.W. Schumann,[1] due to their pioneering work on Burke–Schumann flame. One important conclusion of infinitely fast chemistry is the non-co-existence of fuel and oxidizer simultaneously except in a thin reaction sheet.[2][3] The inner structure of the reaction sheet is described by Liñán's equation.

Limit description

edit

In a typical non-premixed combustion (fuel and oxidizer are separated initially), mixing of fuel and oxidizer takes place based on the mechanical time scale  dictated by the convection/diffusion (the relative importance between convection and diffusion depends on the Reynolds number) terms.[4] Similarly, chemical reaction takes certain amount of time   to consume reactants. For one-step irreversible chemistry with Arrhenius rate, this chemical time is given by

 

where B is the pre-exponential factor, E is the activation energy, R is the universal gas constant and T is the temperature. Similarly, one can define   appropriate for particular flow configuration. The Damköhler number is then

 

Due to the large activation energy, the Damköhler number at unburnt gas temperature   is  , because  . On the other hand, the shortest chemical time is found at the flame (with burnt gas temperature  ), leading to  . Regardless of Reynolds number, the limit   guarantees that chemical reaction dominates over the other terms. A typical conservation equation for the scalar   (species concentration or energy) takes the following form,

 

where   is the convective-diffusive operator and   are the mass fractions of fuel and oxidizer, respectively. Taking the limit   in the above equation, we find that

 

i.e., fuel and oxidizer cannot coexist, since far away from the reaction sheet, only one of the reactant is available (non premixed). On the fuel side of the reaction sheet,   and on the oxidizer side,  . Fuel and oxygen can coexist (with very small concentrations) only in a thin reaction sheet, where   (diffusive transport will be comparable to reaction in this zone). In this thin reaction sheet, both fuel and oxygen are consumed and nothing leaks to the other side of the sheet. Due to the instantaneous consumption of fuel and oxidizer, the normal gradients of scalars exhibit discontinuities at the reaction sheet.

See also

edit

References

edit
  1. ^ Burke, S. P.; Schumann, T. E. W. (1928). "Diffusion flames". Industrial & Engineering Chemistry. 20 (10): 998–1004. doi:10.1021/ie50226a005.
  2. ^ Williams, F. A. (2018). Combustion Theory. CRC Press.
  3. ^ Linan, A.; Williams, F. A. (1993). Fundamental Aspects of Combustion. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-507626-5.
  4. ^ Liñán, A. (2001). "Diffusion-controlled combustion". In Aref, H.; Phillips, J. W. (eds.). Mechanics for a New Millennium. Dordrecht: Springer. pp. 487–502. doi:10.1007/0-306-46956-1_31. ISBN 978-0-7923-7156-4.