Visualization of multi-regime turbulent combustion in swirl-stabilized lean premixed flames

Simultaneous two-species imaging using single-shot planar laser-induced fluorescence have been performed to record high quality image pairs of CH/OH, CH/CH2O and OH/CH2O to visualize the flame front structures in swirl-stabilized lean premixed methane/air flames. The results show that the investigated flames exhibit various flame front structures distinctly in space, which covers: (1) the corrugated flamelet at the leading front; (2) the thin reaction-zone layer with distorted preheat zone in the shear-layer downstream; and (3) quenching, re-ignition and distributed reactions further downstream. The large variation of the flame characteristics in space stems from the entrainment of ambient cold air to the flame that results in flame quenching at the trailing edge of the flame. Thereafter, the unburned fuel/air mixture in the downstream region mixes with the entrained air and the hot combustion products from the upstream leading flame front, leading to reignition with distributed reactions. The current results provide a direct experimental evidence that distributed reactions can be a common combustion mode along with the results (Ref. [1], Zhou et al., 2015) recently reported in the highly turbulent premixed jet flames.