Coaxial turbulent jet flames: Scaling relations for measured stoichiometric mixing lengths

Previous studies have quantified the fuel–air mixing processes within jet flames having a central fuel jet surrounded by an oxidizer coflow, where the mixing primarily occurs in the far field. The present work instead quantifies mixing within coaxial jet flames having a central jet of oxygen and a surrounding finite thickness coflow of hydrogen. These flames are relatively short and the primary mixing occurs in the near field. The stoichiometric mixing length (L_S) was measured, which is the distance along the centerline at which the stoichiometric condition occurs. Values of L_S were measured for a wide range of velocity ratios for both reacting and nonreacting cases using Planar Laser Induced Fluorescence (PLIF). Acetone PLIF was utilized for nonreacting cases, while OH PLIF was used for reacting. In nonreacting cases the use of a nondimensional momentum flux ratio collapses the nonreacting coaxial jet values of L_S to a single curve, which confirms previous theory. It also was found that the reacting and nonreacting coaxial jet data collapses approximately to a single curve, if one uses both the nondimensional momentum flux ratio and an effective outer flow gas density which is predicted by the analysis of Tacina and Dahm.