Homoclinic bifurcations in radiating diffusion flames

Abstract

We analyse the dynamics of a model describing a planar diffusion flame with radiative heat losses incorporating a single step kinetic using timestepping techniques for Lewis number equal to one. We construct the full bifurcation diagram with respect to the Damköhler number including the branches of oscillating solutions. Based on this analysis we found, for the first time, homoclinic bifurcations that mark the abrupt disappearance of the nonlinear oscillations near extinction as reported in experiments.

Keywords:

• radiating diffusion flames
• nonlinear oscillations
• bifurcation analysis
• homoclinic bifurcation
• timestepping approach