Combustion and Flame, Vol.118, No.3, 370-380, 1999
Ignition of fuel mixtures by standing acoustic waves
The paper considers a stationary problem of ignition of a fuel mixture enclosed between two parallel walls which are kept at a constant temperature. A one-step, Arrhenius reaction of large activation energy with negligible reactant depletion represents the chemistry. The Frank-Kamenetskii parameter is assumed to be very small, so that a thermal explosion does not occur without the action of some external source. A standing plane sonic wave is imposed in the longitudinal direction. The distance between the walls is much smaller than the sound wavelength. Rayleigh's type Vortical acoustic streaming that appears in the region leads to forced heat convection. The effect of that forced convection on heat transfer in the presence of heat release due to the chemical reaction is analyzed theoretically. The analysis demonstrates that acoustic streaming at large streaming Reynolds numbers results in ignition of the mixture.