Reaction Zone Thickness of Turbulent Premixed Flame

Usually, we use the flame thickness and turbulence scale to classify the flame structure on a phase diagram of turbulent combustion. The flame structure in turbulence is still in debate, and many studies have been done. Since the flame motion is rapid and its reaction zone thickness is very thin, it is difficult to estimate the flame thickness. Here, we propose a new approach to determine the reaction zone thickness based on ion current signals obtained by an electrostatic probe, which has enough time and space resolution to detect flame fluctuation. Since the signal depends on the flow condition and flame curvature, it may be difficult to analyze directly these signals and examine the flame characteristics. However, ion concentration is high only in the region where hydrocarbon-oxygen reactions occur, and we can specify the reaction zone. Based on the reaction zone existing, we estimate the reaction zone thickness. We obtain the thickness of flames both in the cyclone-jet combustor and on a Bunsen burner, compared with theoretically predicted value, the Zeldovich thickness. Results show that the experimentally obtained thickness is almost the same as the Zeldovich thickness. It is concluded that this approach can be used to obtain the local flame structure for modeling turbulent combustion.