Flame Holding and Combustion Characteristics of a Geometrical Flame Holder

Flame Stabilization in a high-speed premixed environment requires the presence of a mechanism to stabilize the flame. Bluff bodies or geometrical flame holders introduce a recirculation zone that anchor the flame. The current study considers the influence of equivalence ratio and the boundary layer state at the trailing edge of the flame holder on the flowfield and combustion characteristics. It was found that the recirculation zone is shortened as the equivalence ratio increases towards unity. A secondary shear region emerges downstream of the recirculation zone and is caused by the accelerated low-density combustion products. The emergence of the secondary shear region moves upstream with increasing equivalence ratio. Tripping the boundary layer causes a dramatic reduction in the length of the recirculation zone, and the secondary shear region is greatly augmented. Visualizations show that tripping the boundary layer resulted in a greatly disturbed flame near the trailing edge and large flame scales. Flowfield measurements suggest that the heat release is increased by approximately 50% when the boundary layer tripped.