Atomization and Sprays, Vol.22, No.4, 333-349, 2012
EFFECT OF A FUEL SPRAY ON EDGE FLAME PROPAGATION
In this paper, results of numerical simulations of edge flame propagation in the presence of a spray of liquid droplets in a three-dimensional channel are presented for the first time. The fuel vapor and droplets and gaseous oxidizer are supplied in a counterflow. Attention is focused on the way the spray-related parameters (initial droplet load and the vaporization Damkohler number) impact on the ignition and extinction fronts in the strained opposed flow mixing layer. Unlike similar studies of purely gaseous flames in the same configuration, hysteresis is found to occur here under certain operating conditions. This indicates how the local thermal and chemical distributions that develop upon applying a source of ignition play such a critical part in determining whether ignition will occur.