Fingering Instability in Combustion

Preprint

31 July 1997

preprint
Published by arXiv in arXiv

https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.cond-mat/9707333

Abstract

A thin solid (e.g., paper), burning against an oxidizing wind, develops a fingering instability with two decoupled length scales. The spacing between fingers is determined by the P\'eclet number (ratio between advection and diffusion). The finger width is determined by the degree two dimensionality. Dense fingers develop by recurrent tip splitting. The effect is observed when vertical mass transport (due to gravity) is suppressed. The experimental results quantitatively verify a model based on diffusion limited transport.

Keywords

FINGERING INSTABILITY
FINGERS DEVELOP
OXIDIZING WIND
INSTABILITY
COMBUSTION
THIN SOLID
DIFFUSION
GRAVITY

All Related Versions

Version 1, 1997-07-31, ArXiv
Published version: Physical Review Letters, 81 (18), 3868.

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