Transport of inertial particles in a turbulent premixed jet flame

The heat release, occurring in reacting flows, induces a sudden fluid acceleration which particles follow with a certain lag, due to their finite inertia. Actually, the coupling between particle inertia and the flame front expansion strongly biases the spatial distribution of the particles, by inducing the formation of localized clouds with different dimensions downstream the thin flame front. A possible indicator of this preferential localization is the so-called Clustering Index, quantifying the departure of the actual particle distribution from the Poissonian, which would correspond to a purely random spatial arrangement. Most of the clustering is found in the flame brush region, which is spanned by the fluctuating instantaneous flame front. The effect is significant also for very light particles. In this case a simple model based on the Bray-Moss-Libby formalism is able to account for most of the deviation from the Poissonian. When the particle inertia increases, the effect is found to increases and persist well within the region of burned gases. The effect is maximum when the particle relaxation time is of the order of the flame front time scale. The evidence of this peculiar source of clustering is here provided by data from a direct numerical simulation of a turbulent premixed jet flame and confirmed by experimental data.