4. Perspectives on premixed gas combustion

Since the pioneering work of Mallard and Berthelot, many phenomena have been first identified, then analyzed and finally modeled in order to understand the mechanisms underlying the acceleration of a premixed flame and its possible transition to self-sustained detonation.

This work has involved the determination of fundamental properties, quantities that depend solely on the physico-chemical nature of the molecules involved in the chemical reaction and the initial conditions. Examples include the expansion ratio, fundamental flame speed, Lewis, Zeldovich and Markstein numbers, auto-ignition delay and detonation cell size. Continuous improvements in measurement techniques, thermochemical data, molecular transport properties and reaction mechanisms are helping to reduce the dispersion of these quantities, which form the basis of the models used.

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