Abstract
A unified formulation for heatline and massline calculations is presented in terms of conserved scalars, such as the total enthalpy and elemental mass fractions. The formulation allows some special forms of nonhomogeneous terms in the conserved scalar transport equation. Expressions for heatlines and masslines in single-component and binary mixtures reported by previous studies are shown to be special cases of the general expressions derived herein. We illustrate the use of these visualization techniques with the help of planar and axisymmetric nonreacting jets of hot air in cold air, nonreacting methane and hydrogen jets in air, as well as nonpremixed reacting jets of methane and air. The results clearly demonstrate the applicability of the unified formulation as a useful visualization tool for both nonreacting and reacting flows.