Non-planar smoulder propagation governed by diffusion

The steady propagation of a thin smouldering front in a half-spacehas been considered. A suitable coordinate transformation hasallowed the region near the leading edge of the front to beexamined for both a maintained planar surface and with surfacecollapse due to material shrinkage. The change in the oxidizerconcentration for a small increment in the propagation speedfor large time and surface collapse has been determined. Theinfluence of two types of nonlinear diffusion on the shape ofthe smouldering front has been found; other cases can be dealtwith in a similar manner.