Flame Measurements

The chemical structure of flames is the obvious subject for combustion studies, and yet the study of flames has always posed experimental difficulties. There are many types of flames, for example turbulent and laminar flames or diffusion and premixed flames. The trick to understanding flames is to know the chemistry and the flow well enough to model the interaction between the two. Laser- and mass-spectrometer-based diagnostics and modern computational tools give hope that we can investigate model systems in great detail. We study low-pressure, one-dimensional laminar flames to develop and validate chemical kinetic models, because transport influences are minimized in this configuration. Well-developed models that include detailed chemical kinetics, such as the Sandia PREMIX code, are available.