Turbulent flame and the darrieus–landau instability in a three-dimensional flow

Abstract

The velocity of a weakly turbulent flame influenced by the Darrieus–Landau (DL) instability in a three-dimensional geometry is investigated on the basis of a model nonlinear equation. The equation takes into account realistically large thermal expansion of burning matter, external turbulence and thermal conduction related to small, but finite flame thickness. An external turbulent flow is imitated by a model obeying the Kolmogorov law. The effects of the DL instability and external turbulence are studied, first separately and then as they influence the flame dynamics together for different values of the turbulent intensity, different thermal expansion of the burning matter and different length scales of the hydrodynamic motion controlled by the width of a hypothetic tube with ideally adiabatic walls. The velocity increase obtained is in a good agreement with experimental results in the case of relatively weak turbulent intensity.