Critical slot size for deflagration initiation by hot products discharge into hydrogen-air atmospheres

This computational study addresses deflagration initiation of lean, stoichiometric, and moderately rich hydrogen-air mixtures by the sudden discharge of a hot planar jet of its adiabatic combustion products. The objective is to determine the minimum slot size required for ignition, a relevant quantity of interest for safety and technological applications concerning the accidental ignition of hydrogen. For sufficiently small jet velocities, the numerical solution of the problem requires integration of the two-dimensional Navier-Stokes equations for chemically reacting ideal-gas mixtures, supplemented by standard descriptions of the molecular transport terms and a reduced chemical-kinetic mechanism suitable for hydrogen-air combustion. The computations provide the variation of the critical slot size for hot-jet ignition with both the jet Reynolds number and the equivalence ratio of the mixture. In particular, it is seen that, while the Reynolds number exerts only a relatively weak effect on the ignition process, the influence of the equivalence ratio is much more pronounced, with the smallest slot widths found for stoichiometric or slightly-rich conditions. The numerical results show three different ignition modes, with the flame developing from a clearly identified ignition kernel located either at the core of the leading vortex pair (mode 1), at the symmetry plane near the leading edge of the starting jet (mode 2), or at the jet stem connecting the jet exit with the starting vortex (mode 3).