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Type of Document	Engineer's Thesis
Author	Pardee, William McK.
URN	etd-04292003-095800
Persistent URL	http://resolver.caltech.edu/CaltechETD:etd-04292003-095800
Title	Variation of burning velocity with pressure
Degree	Engineer's Degree
Option	Aeronautics
Advisory Committee	Advisor Name Title Unknown Committee Member
Keywords	None
Date of Defense	1953-01-01
Availability	unrestricted
Abstract A review of some of the recent theories of steady state flame propagation in gaseous mixtures reveals a considerable difference in their prediction of the effect of pressure on burning velocity. Furthermore, the experimental data obtained by various workers in the field indicate widely different trends. In some cases burning velocity appears to be independent of pressure whereas in other cases it appears to increase as the pressure is reduced below atmospheric. Hence, as a possible aid in discovering more about the mechanism of flame propagation, the burning velocity of several gaseous mixtures was studied over the general pressure range from 100 to 700 mm Hg absolute. The mixtures used were acetylene-oxygen, acetylene-air, acetylene-oxygen-nitrogen, ammonia-oxygen, ammonia-oxygen-nitrogen, carbon monoxide-oxygen, carbon monoxide-air, and propane-air. Using the burner-visual cone-area method with burners of various sizes, the following results were obtained: for all the above mixtures, except propane-air, the burning velocity is independent of pressure; for propane-air mixtures, the burning velocity varies as P[superscript -.13]. These results are valid provided the burner size is large enough to nullify the effect of quenching. It is concluded that these results definitely do not support the Tanford and Pease theory that burning velocity varies as P[superscript -.25].
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