COMBUSTION AND FLAME 52:91-106 (1983)

91

The Visible Shape and Size of a Turbulent Hydrocarbon Jet Diffusion Flame in a Cross-wind
GAUTAM T. KALGHATGI
Shell Research Ltd., Thornton Reseach Centre, P.O. Box 1, Chester CH I 3SH, UK

The results of an extensive wind-tunnel study into the shapes and sizes of hydrocarbon jet diffusion flames in a horizontal cross-wind are presented. The shape of a turbulent diffusion flame in a cross-wind can be described by the frustum of a cone, which, in turn, can be defined by five different parameters of shape. When the burner axis is normal to the wind, each shape parameter can be related to the burner diameter, the burner exit velocity, the cross-wind speed, and the density of the burner gas by one equation. When the burner axis is not normal to the wind, the experimental results still follow an identifiable pattern and can be used to estimate flame shapes and sizes.

1. INTRODUCTION Prediction of the size and shape of a turbulent diffusion flame in cross-wind is of much practical interest-for instance, to engineers designing industrial burners and flare systems in the petrochemical industry. The problem has been studied by Brzustowski and coworkers [1-6], by Escudier [7], and more recently by Becker et al. [8]. The enormous difficulties involved in theoretically modeling such a complex turbulent flow and combustion problem have been highlighted in Refs. [1] and [3]. Hence, for the time being, engineers have to rely on empirical methods that predict some gross average features of the flame which, in many practical cases, are all that are needed. Many such methods are used in the oil and gas industry (see, for example, Ref. [9] ) for predicting the position of the flame tip with respect to the burner tip in a normal cross-wind. Of all these methods, perhaps the one proposed by Brzustowski [2] has the soundest scientific foundation. However, as he pointed out, his procedure, which is mainly based on cold flow correlations, does not predict the flame length accurately (for laboratoryscale propane flames, for instance), though the traCopyright 1983 by The Combustion Institute Published by Elsevier Science Publishing Co., Inc. 52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, ICY 10017

jectory of the flame centre line can be described adequately [6]. Results from large-scale flare tests are not well reported and whatever evidence is available (see, for example, Ref. [ 10] ) is inconclusive. Becker et al. [8] have published a limited amount of experimental data for flames from a vertical burner in a normal cross-wind; they have also considered interesting variants of the problem, viz. the flame from a horizontal burner in still air and the flame from a vertical burner in a body of air rotating about the burner axis. Again, there is not much information in the literature about flame widths. Hence, there has been a need for a systematic experimental study of the detailed shape and size of a jet diffusion flame in crosswind; the results of such a study are described in this paper. The study leads to the formulation of empirical correlations based on extensive experimental data which allow the flame size and shape to be predicted in greater detail than before. The main body of the work considers the standard case of a vertical burner in a horizontal wind. Experiments were also conducted where the angle, 0j, between the burner axis and the wind direction was other than 90 , though the wind was always horizontal. The visible flame can be de-

0010-2180/83/$03.00

92

G.T. KALGHATGI

FLAME W~
~o~Zo

oc Wl

LBV

l ue

BURNER

Fig. 1. Sketch o f t h e flame and cone frustum.

scribed by a frustum of a cone, which, in turn, can be defined by three lengths and two angles (see Fig. 1). The angle a a is the angle between the burner axis and the line OB joining the flame tip to the tip of the burner. The angle a is the angle made by the axis of the frustum with the burner axis. The flame tip is located with respect to the stack tip by a B, together with a length, either the length L n of the line OB or the normal distance L s v between the flame tip B and the burner exit plane. W2 and W1 are the widths of the frustum at either end. Note that the lower end of the frustum, PQ, passes through the point of intersection of the frustum axis and the burner axis. Thus the base of the flame, as described by the frustum, is lifted off the burner along, but not perpendicular to, the burner axis. We would have to introduce an additional length scale to describe the displacement from the burner tip of the flame base perpendicular to the burner axis; such displacement was ac-

tually observed in many of the cases studied here. Since this would only introduce an extra shape parameter which would have to be empirically predicted, it was decided to tolerate the small errors in the description of the shape of the flame near its base by sticking to a five-parameter description of the frustum. It is possible to find an empirical formula for each of these parameters, at least for the 0j = 90 case, from analysis of the experimental results as described below. 2. EXPERIMENTS AND RESULTS The experiments were conducted in a wind-tunnel belonging to Sheffield University. The test section of the wind-tunnel is 2.65 m high and 2 m wide and has a large window (2.3 m 2.9 m) made of transparent heat-resistant plastic through which the flame can be observed. The air flow passes

JET DIFFUSION FLAME IN CROSSWlND through a fine wire mesh, a contraction, and a honeycomb structure before it enters the test section and, hence, is expected to be uniform there. Burners of 6, 10, 12, 14 and 22 mm diameters were used. Each burner was placed in the windtunnel section with its axis making the appropriate angle, 0j, with the horizontal, which was always the wind direction. The experiments were done at different cross-wind speeds (V), ranging between 2.7 m/s and 8.1 m/s, and at different burner exit velocities (Ue), ranging between 15 m/s and 220 m/s. Each burner is a straight tube and was mounted on a large settling chamber of 150 mm internal diameter. The tip of the burner was usually about 0.6 m from the floor of the tunnel. The pressure in the settling chamber was measured using either a water or a mercury manometer. This pressure was taken to be the upstream stagnation pressure of the flow and the velocity at the nozzle exit was calculated from it. The wind velocity was measured at the level of the burner exit, using a micromanometer. The gases used were commercial grade propane, ethylene, methane, and butane. The flame shape was recorded using a color video system for each gas, burner and 0j for different sets of V and U. For each of the experiments, a frustum of a cone was fitted to the flame in each of five randomly chosen frames of the relevant video record. The average of these five shapes was taken to represent the flame shape for that particular case. There were a few cases where the flame shape fluctuated too much with time for such an average to be meaningful. These cases are not included in the final data reduction, which considers a total of 136 different experiments. It must be emphasized that, for any given case, there was very good agreement (to within 6% for any of the shape parameters considered) between the shapes fitted in this manner to the flame by two independent observers. Before we come to the presentation of the resuits, we will briefly discuss how we expect them to behave. Let us, for the sake of the following discussion, consider LB, the length of line OB in Fig. 1 which is often taken to be the "flame length," as a characteristic dimension of the flame. At the tip of the flame, the concentration of the

93 fuel gas should have reached the stoichiometric mass fraction, C. The rate at which air is entrained into the flame to bring this about will determine the length LB. The entrainment rate in a jet in cross wind depends on the relevant aerodynamic parameters, the momentum flux ratio pooV2/PeUe 2, where p~. and Pe are, respectively, the densities of the burner gas and air, and the Reynoids and the Richardson ratios. It will also depend on the burner source diameter D s = D(Pe/p~) o'5, where D is the actual burner diameter (e.g., Refs. [2, 11]). We can reasonably assume that the Reynolds number at the burner exit is sufficiently high, and the turbulence is sufficiently developed, so that the jet entrainment coefficients are independent of the Reynolds number. The Richardson ratio, which measures the importance of buoyancy, is defined as the ratio of the buoyancy to the input momentum flux. Conventionally, the cube root of this ratio, termed the Richardson number, ~, is used in diffusion flame studies (see the Introduction in Ref. [11 ]). In the present context, it can be defined as ~= ~ - - ~ g 2~tl/alXLB

\os2Vo !

where g is the acceleration due to gravity. Thus we can expect L B to depend on V, Uo, Ds, pc, p~, C, and ~. From simple dimensional analysis, we can expect LB/D s to depend on the velocity ratio R = V/U, ~, C, and Pc~P**. We can extend this argument to any of the length scales used to describe the flame and expect them to depend on the nondimensional parameters discussed above when normalized with respect to D s. The angles describing the flame depend on the ratios of lengths and hence should be independent of Ds, but should depend on the same nondimensional parameters as the lengths. We will show, from experimental results, that R is by far the most important nondimensional parameter in the present problem. The results for the 0j = 90 case are described first.
2 . 1 T h e 0i = 9 0 c a s e

This series of tests comprised 103 different experiments. The range of conditions considered, as well

TABLE 1 Range of Conditions Considered for the ej -- 90 Case

Gas

Burner dia. (D), mm)

Symbol used in plots

Range of Ue considered, m/s

Range of V considered, m/s

Range of Richardson number ~

Number of experiments

Methane

3 3
3

22 14 10

X ~

36, 44, 52 52, 70, 88 150, 108, 52

2.8 2.8, 3.5 2.6, 4.7

4-4.2 2.4-3.9 2-3

Propane

22 14 10 6

O [] /x X7

15, 20, 28 22-56 48-93 34-200

2.8, 3.8, 4.5 2.8-5.9 3.3 -7.5 2.9-6.9

6-8.1 4-7.1 3 -4.5 1.3-4.6

6 10 14 19

Ethylene

22 14 10 6 22 14 10 6 ~ t~ [] tl 13 21 21, 34 21-53 3 3 3 3

14, 28 14-58 14-80 29-210

3.1 3.1, 8.1 3.1, 6 3.1, 6, 8.1

5.6- 9.4 5-11.6 2.9- 8.4 1.5- 5.2 10 7.2 5.7, 7 3.7 -5.8

2 8 15 12 1 1 2 4

Commercial butanes (mol. wt. ---54)

r,..8

JET DIFFUSION FLAME IN CROSSWIND as the symbols used in the subsequent figures, are listed in Table I. The five parameters chosen to define the cone frustum in this case were ctB, a, L B v , W, and W2. It was found that a B and a depend only on the velocity ratio R. This is illustrated in Figs. 2 and 3, where ctB and t~, respectively, have been plotted against R. Also shown in Fig. 2 are the plots for a B for propane, methane,, and ethylene as predicted by Brzustowski's procedure [2]. These are, in general, lower than the values from our experiments. If any of the three length scales is normalized with respect to Ds, the data for all the experiments can again be collapsed on to a single curve when plotted against R. This is illustrated in Fig. 4 for (LBv/Ds), where the curves predicted by Brzustowski's procedure [2] for propane, methane, and ethylene have also been plotted. It can be seen that there is very good agreement between these curves and our experimental data. Thus, it can be seen from Figs. 2 and 4 that Brzustowski's procedure [2] underestimates the flame length, LB, though it predicts the height of the tip of the flame above the tip of the burner very well. The plots for (W2/Ds) and (W1/Ds) in Figs. 5 and 6, respectively, show much more scatter than the plots in Figs. 2, 3, and 4. Best-fitting curves were found for the plots of each of the five shape parameters. Over the range 0.02 < R < 0.25, the equations that describe these curves are: a B = 94 - (1.6/R) - 35 R (degrees) a = 94 - (1.l/R) - 30 R (degrees) (1) (2) (3)

95 tive wind speeds, the flame takes an almost cylindrical shape. For diffusion flames in still air, the value of/~ appears to vary between 6 and 8 . The results show that the shape and size of the flame is independent of C and is determined only by the aerodynamics of the problem. We must, however, remember that the range of C considered in our experiments is small, from 0.063 for ethylene to 0.055 for methane. The results depend on the density ratio Pe/P~, which ranged from 1.86 for commercial butanes to 0.55 for methane, only to the extent that it appears in D s. In still air, the entrainment of air into the diffusion flame is dominated by buoyancy [ 11 ] and flame lengths are dependent on ~. Our results show that in the presence of cross-wind, buoyancy is not important and flame size is independent of ~, which ranges from 1.511.6 in this study, ascan be seen from Table I. The cross-wind is the dominant factor in the entrainment of air into the fuel jet and indeed enhances it considerably (e.g., Refs. [12] and [13]). This greatly shortens the flame length. For instance, in all our experiments (LB/Ds) was between 95 and 120, In still air, for the jet velocities considered in this paper, (LB/Ds) can be expected to be larger than 200 [11]. Brzustowski and co-workers [1-6], as well as Becket et al. [8], have also noted that the visible flame shape, as determined by the trajectory of the flame centerline, is largely uninfluenced by buoyancy. Buoyancy effects would become increasingly important as one moved downstream into the plume of hot gases beyond the tip of the flame. Entrainment in that region may be described by a conventional buoyant plume model (see Ref. [7] ). The largest flame encountered in this study was 2.7-m long, comparable in size to a flame from an industrial burner. In large flames, such as those resulting from industrial flares (e.g., 1 m stack diameter, methane flare), ~ could vary between 4 and 20 depending on exit velocity. Thus, the present experiments do cover a range of ~ which is of practical interest and the correlations presented should be applicable to a large class of practically interesting cases. Indeed, some preliminary field tests with large flames (L B --- 15 m, /-,re between 100 m/s and 260 m/s) have confirmed that the correlations presented here predict the flame shape

(LBv/Ds) = 6 + (2.35/R) + 20 R (W2/Ds) = 80 - (0.57/R) - 570 R

+ 1470 R 2

(4)

(W1/Ds) = 49 - (0.22/R) - 380 R

+ 950 R 2. From these that the cone creases from a value of about correlations, we can half angle, 13, for the value of about 5 at R 2.8 at R = 0.2. Thus (5) also deduce frustum de= 0.025 to a at large rela-

O~

90

O i = 90*

80

im~ no [] o o

di

713

~~

..././~S-j --I

60

5(:

z.J.."""
BRZUSTOWSKI ( 1976 ) PROPANE ETHYLENE ........ METHANE

//,,

4(3

,~////li
i~//

50

20

I
0 O5

I I/

I o.I

I 015

C3 ,-.] 02
R= V / U e

Fig. 2. Variation with R o f t h e angle, OrB, b e t w e e n the burner axis and t h e line joining t h e tip o f the burner to t h e tip o f t h e flame. Normal cross-wind. (See Table I for explanation o f symbols).

C'3 i==w

rll

90

8 i = 90*
V

"tl "11

11

80

zx~V

i
O

r.)

v~
o
0

[] D I~
O

[] o

,lh

[]

o z
'13

[]

> E

t-t1

70

;Z
('3 7~

60

~7

r.~

97v

50

40

513

20

005

0 I R:V/U e

015

02

Fig. 3. V a r i a t i o n w i t h R o f t h e angle, a , b e t w e e n the b u r n e r axis a n d t b e a x i s o f t h e c o n e f r u s t r u m . N o r m a l c r o s s - w i n d . (See T a b l e I for e x p l a n a t i o n o f s y m b o l s ) . "-4

,,D oo

8j=

90

140

120

I00

z~x

BRZUSTOWSKI ( 1 9 7 6 ) PROPANE ETHYLENE METHANE

.> 80

.J

60 \

-y..
x

40-

20

O,

Jl
I

,..]
I O I | 015

005

o2
R= V / U e

r" 3 > C3

Fig. 4. Variation with R of the normalized height of the flame tip from the burner exit. Normal cross-wind. (See Table I for explanation of symbols).

,-] "1"1 "13 [.~

~ j = 90

Z
"1'1

t"tl

~z o ~z

50

40

30

qnv
[] []

[]

[]
0

o~
O
0

20

[]

I0

005

0 I R: V/U e

015

02

Fig. 5. Variation with R o f t h e normalized width W2. Normal cross-wind. (See Table I for explanation o f symbols).

19 j = 90':'

40

~7

3O

at~x~'~

20

~D
x x

[] x o 0

[]

VI~ZX
D

PO

[]

o~

O"

o
O

I 005

I ol
R= v / u e

I o 15

I o2

,-.]

Fig. 6. Variation with R of the normalized width W1. Normal cross-wind. (See Table I for explanation of symbols).
,-]

120 8 ] =135

I00

~
. ~ ~j=.14

7~ o

80

60

~
Sj : 66

40

"

B REDAm_m.m _N I, _ R U

20

o
/ 0 0 I0

ETHYLENE

I 005

I O I
R : V/Ue

I 015

Fig. 7. Variation of,v B with R for different burner inclinations. o

102 very well. However, we have also got a few results from field tests where the observed flame lengths are significantly lower than can be expected from the laboratory results. These field tests were done at large values of R (greater than 0.2) and low exit velocities. It is possible that at large relative windspeeds, the structure of the wind turbulence acquires greater importance and results from uniform wind tunnel streams do not give wholly reliable indications of performance under natural wind conditions, as suggested by Becker et al. [8]. These flames are also "lazy" and are unstable and meander a lot, thus making the idea of an "average" flame shape much less meaningful. A lot more reliable data from large scale field tests are needed either to satisfactorily confirm or to extend the flame shape and size correlations given in this paper, to large industrial flares.
2.2 Cases where Oj =/= 90

G.T. KALGHATGI

In this section, we present experimental results for when 0j = 45 , 66 , 114 , and 135 . The gases used were propane and ethylene. The wind speed, V, ranged between 2.7 m/s and 8 m/s and the exit velocity, Lie, ranged from 45 m/s to 1 I0 m/s. The data are not as extensive as in the 0j = 90 case, but they still follow an identifiable pattern as described below. Here we have chosen aB, a, L B, W2, and W1 to define the cone frustum that describes the flame, In Fig. 7, the angle a B is plotted against R for different burner inclinations. It again appears that for a given value of 0j, a B depends only on R, as in the 0j = 90 case. In Fig. 8, (LB/Ds) has been plotted against R for different values of 0j. Though there is a lot of scatter in the plots, we can assume
BURNER DIA, mm

P o PROPAN E 12J

J4
I0

,60/
o

ETHYLENE

--8}

: 45

,4o}
o 8j -'66 120 [ TV I0 0 W
~j = 114

7O 5O

9t
L
I 005

I 01

I 015

~j = 135 o

R:V/U e

Fig. 8. Variation with R of the normalized "flame length," LB, for different burner inclinations.

JET DIFFUSION FLAME IN CROSSWIND

103

150

FOR R > 0 0 2 5

c~ I00
~n

50

30

60 0 i , degrees

90

120

150

Fig. 9. Variations OfLB/Ds against 0j for R > 0.025.

140 ~1F ~j =135

120

J
O
:

w ~)

114:

100

"O

80

60

8i

= 66

40

B U R N E R DIA,, mm

.-----o--------

8 j = 45

.6)
I I
0.15
R = V/U e

I0

PROPANE

20

14
I0 ETHYLENE

I
0 05

Ol

Fig. 10. Variation of,~ with R for different burner inclinations.

rc} =:

JET DIFFUSION FLAME IN CROSSWlND to a good approximation that (Ln/Ds) is constant for a given value of 0j. It can also be seen that the lower the value of 0j, the larger the value ofLn/D s. This is consistent with the observations o f Platten and Keffer [12] that as 0j increases, the total entrainment coefficient increases. In fact, we can now plot the variation of (Ln/Ds) against 0j, as in Fig. 9, and use this to estimate the flame length L n for 0j ~< 135 if R > 0.025. For larger values of 0j, when the wind is blowing almost into the jet, the flame can no longer be represented by the frustum of a cone and our model breaks down. A linear relationship between (LB/Ds) and 0 i given by:

105 ner gas. In fact the shape and size of the flame appear to be determined solely by the aerodynamics of the problem and in particular by the cross-wind which seems to dominate the entrainment process. Buoyancy appears to be unimportant, so that the most important nondimensional parameter in determining the flame shape and size is the ratio of the wind speed to the burner exit velocity. Flame lengths of up to 2.7 m were encountered in these tests, so that the results should be directly applicable to industrial burners which usually produce flames of comparable size. Preliminary results from field tests also suggest that the correlations presented in this work predict the flame shape very well for large industrial flares if the stack exit velocity is large and the relative wind speed is small. Such flames could result from emergency flarings. For large relative wind speeds and small stack exit velocities, i.e., when "lazy" meandering flames are produced, the few results from field trials that we have made suggest that the present correlations are not very good. More reliable data from large scale tests are needed either to satisfactorily confirm or extend the present correlations to flames resulting from industrial flare. Experimental data have been presented for four cases when the burner axis is not normal to the wind. These data also follow an identifiable pattern and can be used to estimate flame shapes and sizes. Thus, it is now possible to predict the shape and size of a hydrocarbon diffusion flame in a cross-wind for a jet injection angle 0j in the range of 45 ~<Oj ~< 135 .

(LB/Ds) = 163 - 0.64 0j

(6)

where 01 is in degrees, appears to be adequate. Finally a has been plotted against R for different values of 01 in Fig. 10. In general, a > aB, though this difference is much less noticeable for cases where 0j < 90 . It can also be seen that a tends to 0j, as is to be expected, w h e n R increases Indeed, if (a + 90 - 0j), the angle between the center line of the frustum and the vertical, is plotted against R, the points in Fig. 10 will all collapse reasonably around the plot in Fig. 3, where a has been plotted against R for 0j = 90 . When normalized flame widths (W1/Ds) and (W2/Ds) are plotted against R for this second series of experiments, all the points fall within the scatter of the points for corresponding plots for 0j = 90 . Thus we can use the correlations given in Equations 4 and 5 for all the values of 0j considered. 3. CONCLUSIONS The shape of a turbulent diffusion flame in a crosswind can be described by the frustum of a cone, which, in turn, can be defined by five different shape parameters. When the wind is normal to the burner axis, the analysis of experimental data over a wide range of conditions has shown that there is one equation for each of these parameters relating it to the burner diameter, the burner exit velocity, the cross-wind speed, and the density of the bur-

The author wishes to thank Mr. R. J. Wade and Mr. J. F. Bennett o f Shell Research Ltd., Thornton for their help in the experimental work.

REFERENCES
1. Botros, P. E. and Brzustowski, T. A., Seventeenth Symposium on Combustion, The Combustion Institute, 1979, p. 389. 2. Brzustowski, T. A. Prog Energy Combust. ScL 2:129 (1976).

106 3. Brzustowski, T. A., Turbulent Combustion (Prog. Astro. and Aero.}, (L. A. Kennedy, Ed.), AIAA, 1978, Vol. 58, p. 407. 4. Brzustowski, T. A., GoUahaUi, S. R., Gupta, M. P., Kaptein, M., and Sullivan, H. F., ASME Paper 75HT-4 (1975). 5. Brzustowski, T. A., GollahaUi, S. R., and Sullivan, H. F. Combust. ScL Tech. 11:29 (1975). 6. Gollahalli, S. R., Brzustow~ki, T. A., and Sullivan, H. F., Trans. CSME, 3:205 (1975). 7. Escudier, M. P. Combust. Sc Tech. 4:293 (1972). 8. Becker, H. A., Liang, D., and Downey, C. I., Eighteenth Symposium on Combustion, The Combustion Institute (1981).

G . T . KALGHATGI 9. API RP521. American Petroleum Institute, Div. of Refining (1969). 10. Oenbring, P. R. and Sifferman, T. R., Hydrocarbon Processing, 1980, p. 124. 11. Becker, H. A. and Liang, D., Combust. Flame 32: 115 (1978). 12. Platten, J. L. and Keffer, J. F., Entrainment in defleeted axisymmetrie jets at various angles to the stream, University of Toronto, Dept. of Mech. Eng. Report TP.6808 (1968). 13. Keffer, J. F. and Baines, W. D. J. FluidMech. 15: 481--496 (1963).
Received 28May 1982; revised 28 February 1983