• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.29 no.3 s.234
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• pp.390-401
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• 2005

In this study, extinction limit extension of unsteady $(CH_{4}+N_{2})$/air diffusion flames was investigated experimentally. A spatially locked flame in an opposing jet burner was perturbed by linear velocity variation, and time-dependent flame luminosity, transient maximum flame temperature and OH radical were measured over time with the high speed camera, Rayleigh scattering method and OH laser-induced fluorescence, respectively. Unsteady flames survive at strain rates that are much higher than the extinction limit of steady flames, and unsteady extinction limits extend as the slope of the strain rate increases or the initial strain rate decreases. We verified the validity of the equivalent strain rate concept by comparing the course of unsteady extinction process and steady extinction process, and it was found that the equivalent strain rate concept represents well the unsteady effect of a convective-diffusive zone. To investigate the reason of the unsteady extinction limit extension, we subtracted the time lag of the convective-diffusive zone by using the equivalent strain concept. Then the modified unsteady extinction limits become smaller than the original unsteady extinction limits, however, the modified unsteady extinction limits are still larger than the steady extinction limits. These results suggest that there exist the unsteady behavior of a diffusive-reactive zone near the extinction limit due to the chemical non-equilibrium states associated with unsteady flames.