Effects of fuel type and equivalence ratios on the flickering of triple flames

An experimental study has been conducted in axisymmetric, co-flowing triple flames with different equivalence ratios of the inner and outer reactant streams ( 2 < ϕ in < 3 and 0 ⩽ ϕ out < 0.7 ). Different fuel combinations, like propane/propane, propane/methane or methane/methane in the inner and outer streams respectively, have been used in the experiments. The structures of the triple flames have been compared for the different fuel combinations and equivalence ratios. The conditions under which triple flames exhibit oscillation have been identified. During the oscillation, the non-premixed flame and the outer lean premixed flame flicker strongly, while the inner rich premixed flame remains more or less stable. The flickering frequency has been evaluated through image processing and fast Fourier transform (FFT) of the average pixel intensity of the image frames. It is observed that, for all the fuel combinations, the frequency decreases with the increase in the outer equivalence ratio, while it is relatively invariant with the change in the inner equivalence ratio. However, an increase in the inner equivalence ratio affects the structure of the flame by increasing the heights of the inner premixed flame and non-premixed flame and also enlarges the yellow soot-laden zone at the tip of the inner flame. A scaling analysis of the oscillating flames has been performed based on the measured parameters, which show a variation of Strouhal number (St) with Richardson number (Ri) as St ∝ Ri0.5. The fuel type is found to have no influence on this correlation.