Experimental study of laminar and turbulent flame speed of a spherical flame in a fan-stirred closed vessel for hydrogen safety application

Abstract The aim of this paper is to report new experimental results on the effect of turbulence on the propagation speed of hydrogen/air flames. To do so, a new experimental setup, called the spherical bomb, has been designed and built at CNRS-ICARE laboratory. With this new setup, the effect of a given and well-characterized turbulence intensity on the increase of hydrogen/air flame speed can be investigated. This new facility consists of a spherical vessel equipped (563 mm internal diameter) equipped with 8 motors which are linked to fans inside the bomb. Fan actuation induces the generation of a turbulent flow inside the vessel prior to any ignition. The spherical bomb is equipped with 4 quartz windows (200 mm optical diameter) that allow the use of a Particle Image Velocimetry diagnostic in order to characterize the turbulence level inside the bomb. The flame propagation was recorded using a high speed camera at 19,002 frames per second. These experiments were performed for lean to stoichiometric hydrogen/air mixtures (16–20% of H 2 in air), initially at ambient temperature and pressure, and for a rotation speed from 1000 to 5000 rpm. The PIV measurements showed that a homogeneous and isotropic turbulence is created with a fluctuation speed that can reach 4 m/s at 5000 rpm.