Combustion and Flame 201 (2019) 23–30

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Combustion and Flame

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/combustflame

On the influence of distance between two jets on flickering diffusion

flames
Liu Changchun a, Liu Xinlei a, Ge Hong b, Deng Jun a, Zhou Shasha a, Wang Xueyao b,∗,
Cheng Fangming a
a
College of Safety Science and Engineering, Xi’an University of Science and Technology, Xi’an 710054, China
b
School of Control and Computer Engineering, North China Electric Power University, Beijing 102206, China

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: The interactions of multiple flames are often encountered in real-world fire and industrial burners. The
Received 2 March 2018 distance between two jets has a strong influence on the instability mode, oscillation frequency, and mean
Revised 20 August 2018
height of flickering diffusion flames, which is experimentally studied and analyzed in this paper. Five
Accepted 5 December 2018
different types of instability modes are identified as the separation distance between two nozzles is in-
creased. When the nozzle separation distance is smaller, the flame mode is similar to that of a single-
Keywords: nozzle flame. In this case, the flame can switch between the merged sinuous mode and the merged
Flickering varicose mode due to external disturbances on the flame. As the nozzle separation distance increases,
Diffusion flame the probability of mode switching from merged varicose to merged sinuous decreases. As the nozzle sep-
Dual-nozzle flame
aration distance increases further, the flame mode translates into symmetric sinuous mode, alternated
Flame height
sinuous or independent mode. In addition, the flame height and oscillation frequency of a dual-nozzle
Instability
flame have their own characteristics, which are different from that of the single-nozzle flame. The in-
crease of the nozzle separation distance, leads to a decrease and then an increase of the flame mean
height. It is interesting that the flame mean height of the alternated sinuous flame is the lowest, even
lower than that of the single-nozzle flame. The oscillation frequency of the symmetrical sinuous flame is
lower than that of the single-nozzle flame, and the frequency of alternated sinuous flame is higher than
that of the single-nozzle flame.
© 2018 The Combustion Institute. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction Rayleigh–Taylor instabilities play important roles in the formation

Characterization of jet flames has been a topic of high interests
in the field of combustion science and technology for years. A
deep understanding of the stabilization mechanisms of jet dif-
fusion flames is essential for improving combustion efficiency
and optimizing combustion devices, since in practice combustion
devices often operate under unsteady conditions. Flame flickering
reflects the instability of the combustion and has frequently been
observed in diffusion jet flames. Intensive research has been
carried out on single-nozzle flickering flames; however, two or
more diffusion flames that interact with each other are often
encountered in actual fire and industrial burners. But there is a
relative lack of study on flame stability of multiple nozzles.
It is well known that the flickering of a diffusion flame is
caused mainly by the interaction between the flame and the vor-
tices surrounding the luminance flame [1]. Kelvin–Helmholtz and
∗
Corresponding author.
E-mail address: wangxueyao@ncepu.edu.cn (W. Xueyao).
of unstable vortices. Characteristics of a flickering diffusion flame
generally include instability mode, oscillation frequency, oscillation
amplitude and mean height [2,3].
There are two most common flame instability modes for lami-
nar jet diffusion flames, namely sinuous mode and varicose mode.
But for non-reacting buoyant plume, only varicose mode occurs
[2,4]. The vortex rings on both sides of a flame of varicose mode
are symmetric, while the vortex rings on both sides of a flame of
sinuous mode are tilted and asymmetric. It is observed that the
instability of a diffusion flame can switch from one mode to the
other, and the probability of two modes is related to the Richard-
son (Ri) number. The probability of sinuous mode appears to in-
crease with the increase of the fuel gas speed but the decrease
of the nozzle diameter [2]. The instability modes of a dual-nozzle
flame are more complex than a single-nozzle one. Therefore, the
Multiflame (Mu) number is introduced in this paper. In addition,
a dual-nozzle flame is divided into four instability regimes by
Mu and Ri, namely merged sinuous and varicose regime, symmet-
ric sinuous regime, alternated sinuous regime, and independent
regime, respectively.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.combustflame.2018.12.003
0010-2180/© 2018 The Combustion Institute. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
24 L. Changchun, L. Xinlei and G. Hong et al. / Combustion and Flame 201 (2019) 23–30

Nomenclature

Aarea flame project area (m2 )

A∗ area normalized flame project area
cp specific heat at constant pressure (kJ kg−1 K−1 )
De_dual equivalent hydraulic diameter of dual nozzles (m)
Din inner diameter of nozzle pipe (m)
f flame oscillation frequency (Hz)
fneck flame neck oscillation frequency (Hz)
fheight flame height oscillation frequency (Hz)
farea flame project area oscillation frequency (Hz)
Fr Froude number (Eq. (10))
g gravitational acceleration (m s−2 )
Hc heat of combustion per unit fuel mass (kJ kg−1 )
Hheight flame height (m)
H∗ height normalized flame height
Lmf mean flame height (m)
Mu multiflame number (Eq. (3))
N a non-dimensional group (Eq. (5))
Q˙ heat release rate (kW)
Q∗ dimensionless heat release rate (Eq. (2))
r mass stoichiometric ratio, ambient air to fuel gas
Ri Richardson number (Eq. (1))
ρ0 ambient air density (kg m−3 )
s nozzle separation distance (m)
s∗ dimensionless nozzle separation distance
St Strouhal number (Eq. (9))
T0 ambient air temperature (K)
vF fuel gas velocity (m s−1 )
Wneck flame neck width (m)
W∗ neck normalized flame neck width
It is shown in the literature that the frequency of flame flick-
ering is commonly around 10–20 Hz, and the frequency is weakly
dependent on the type of fuel, ambient pressure [5,6], burner size
and fuel flow rate [7,8]. While gravity [9], ambient gas density [2],
co-flow air speed [10] have shown strong effects on the frequency.
The frequency of flame flickering is described by the Froude (Fr)
number and the Strouhal (St) number [11,12]. Fr is a ratio of the
inertia to buoyancy forces in the combustion, and St is a parameter
to characterize the flame oscillation frequency [13]. Malalasekera et
al. [13] indicated that the relation between Fr and St can be written
as St = constant∗ Frb , where the exponent b is negative. Assuming
that the flow inside and outside the flame sheet is incompressible
and inviscid, Cetegen and Ahmed [14] derived a formula for cal-
culating the flame oscillation frequency using the Ri number. The
effects of cross-wind on frequency of diffusion flames were consid-
ered by Fang et al. [15,16] and a drag coefficient was introduced to
correct Cetegen and Ahmed’s formula. Kostiuk and Cheng [9] stud-
ied the influence of gravity on flame oscillation frequency, which
resulted in an empirical relationship St∗ /Ri = 0.0018/Re2/3 . Gotoda
et al. [17] focused on how the flame oscillation frequency changes
with increasing swirl number S, and introduced the swirl number
S to Kostiuk and Cheng’s formula.
Flame height is the most important morphological quantity
of diffusion flames. A diffusion jet flame can be divided into
buoyancy-controlled regime, momentum-controlled regime and
transition regime according to the flame height [18]. The flame
height increases with the increasing fuel supply rate in buoyancy-
controlled regime, and it hardly changes with the fuel supply rate
in momentum-controlled regime. Stoichiometry, nozzle diameter,
air entrainment condition and ambient gas density are all im-
portant factors affecting the flame height for both the buoyancy-
controlled regime and the momentum-controlled regime [18–20].
Fig. 1. Schematic of the experimental setup.
There are many formulas for calculating the flame height. For
example, Heskestad [21,22] established a relationship between
the dimensionless heat release rate and the normalized flame
height. Delichatsios [23] introduced the flame Froude number Frf
as a dimensionless parameter to account for the transition from
buoyancy-controlled regime to momentum-controlled regime, and
developed formulas for calculation of the flame height based on
Frf for different combustion regimes. Hu et al. [24] found that the
normalized mean flame height is higher in lower pressure atmo-
sphere, and an entrainment correction factor aT is used to mod-
ify Delichatsios’s formulas. Significant progress on single-nozzle
flickering flames have been made [1–3,9,17,21–29]. However, dual-
nozzle flames are more complex than single-nozzle ones. The in-
stability modes of a dual-nozzle flame can be merged sinuous
mode, merged varicose mode, symmetric sinuous mode, alternated
sinuous mode or independent mode according to our experimen-
tal results. And the flame height and oscillation frequency of dual-
nozzle flames have their own characteristics, which are different
from that of single-nozzle flames. In this paper, the influence of the
distance between two jets on the instability mode, oscillation fre-
quency, oscillation amplitude and mean height of a flickering diffu-
sion flame is studied experimentally. Insights into the mechanisms
of interaction between two diffusion flames are obtained.
2. Experimental setup
Figure 1 shows a schematic diagram of the experimental setup.
A Z-type nozzle is made of stainless steel pipe, and its inner
diameter Din was set as 4 mm, 5 mm, 6 mm, 7 mm and 8 mm,
respectively, with thickness of 0.5 mm. Two Z-type nozzles are in-
stalled on the tube fittings fixed on two sliders, and the distance
s between the nozzles are controlled by the sliders. During the
experiments, the separation distance s between the nozzles was
set as 0 mm, 2 mm, 5 mm, 10 mm, 15 mm, 20 mm, 30 mm, 50 mm,
75 mm and 100 mm, respectively. The repeatability of the nozzle
separation distance (for s  10 mm) and the inner diameter Din is
about ± 0.2 mm, and the repeatability of the nozzle separation dis-
tance (for s > 10 mm) is about ± 0.5 mm. The fuel gas is propane
(99.7% pure) gas supplied from a compressor, and its flow rate is
measured with a rotameter (model type DK800-6) whose accu-
racy is 2.5% of the full scale. The propane gas flow rate was set
as 8.1 L/h, 16.2 L/h, 32.5 L/h, 48.7 L/h, 64.9 L/h and 81.1 L/h, respec-
tively. The experimental conditions are summarized in Table 1. For
each nozzle diameter, 60 cases with different fuel flow rates and
nozzle separation distances were considered, and each case was
repeated three times.
 L. Changchun, L. Xinlei and G. Hong et al. / Combustion and Flame 201 (2019) 23–30 25

Table 1
Experimental conditions.

Nozzle inner diameter Din (mm) Volume flow rate (L/h) Nozzle distance s (mm) Velocity (m/s) Re Fr Heat release rate (kW)

4 8.1–81.1 0–100 0.179–1.793 188–1883 0.81–81.97 0.21–2.06

5 8.1–81.1 0–100 0.115–1.147 151–1506 0.27–26.6 0.21–2.06
6 8.1–81.1 0–100 0.080–0.797 126–1255 0.11–10.79 0.21–2.06
7 8.1–81.1 0–100 0.059–0.585 106–1076 0.05–4.99 0.21–2.06
8 8.1–81.1 0–100 0.045–0.448 94–941 0.03–2.56 0.21–2.06

Flame videos were recorded by a CCD camera (model type

HDC-TM900) and a high-speed camera (model type Phantom VEO
640S). The CCD camera provides a frame rate of 60 Hz with a res-
olution of 1280 × 1600 and exposure time of 1/750 s. The high-
speed camera provides a frame rate of 500 Hz with a resolution
of 1280 × 1600 and exposure time of 1.9 ms. The CCD camera basi-
cally meets the experimental requirement, so the videos from the
CCD camera were used for experimental data processing in most
cases, except for some conditions requiring more details, in which
case the high-speed camera was used. In addition, the CCD camera
is a color camera, while the high-speed camera is a gray one.
CCD cameras have been widely used in the measurement of
flame height, flame frequency, flame brightness and the like, and
the related algorithms are constantly improving [4,19,24,30–31].
Each pixel on the digital color image is represented by three val-
ues, i.e., R(red), G(green) and B(blue). The value of R, G or B is in
the range of 0–255. The larger the value of R, G or B, the brighter
the color red, green or blue, respectively. For the color video ob-
tained by the CCD camera, the RGB values of each frame were read
using a piece of Matlab code. And then appropriate R, G and B
thresholds were selected to binarize the image. The binarization
thresholds were selected as follows:
if R(x, y) > = 220 and G(x, y) > = 130 and B(x, y) > = 80, then (x,
y) is in the flame zone
else (x, y) is not in the flame zone, and R, G and B values are
set 0.
For the gray image obtained by the high-speed camera, the gray
threshold is set to 150. The gray value is also in the range of 0–
255. The flame height, flame neck width, flame projection area and
other information of each video frame are calculated and recoded
by the Matlab code. Flame intermittency distribution f is obtained
according to Hu et al. [32]. The flame average height is defined as
the farthest distance between the flame and the nozzle outlet in
the intermittency contour, when the intermittency distribution is
greater than or equal to 0.5.
3. Results and discussion
3.1. Flame instability modes
For a single-nozzle diffusion flame, there are two distinct
modes of flame instability, i.e., sinuous mode and varicose mode.
But for dual nozzles, the flame instability modes are much
more complex, as shown in Fig. 2. When the nozzle separation
distance is smaller, the flame mode is similar to that of a single-
nozzle flame, which is either merged sinuous mode or merged
varicose mode as shown in Fig. 2(a) and 2(b). The flame can switch
between the merged sinuous mode and the merged varicose mode
as shown in the results of the single-nozzle study [2]. The proba-
bility of the merged varicose mode increases with the increase of
the nozzle separation distance. The switching from the varicose to
the sinuous mode occurs due to external disturbances on the flame
[33]. The increase of the nozzle separation distance also leads to
the increase of the width of the and the anti-disturbance ability of
Fig. 2. Instability modes of the flame for different distances between the two jets.
Propane flow rate is 16.2 L/h and the nozzle inner diameter is 5 mm for (a)–(e). (a)
merged sinuous mode, nozzle separation distance 0 mm. (b) merged varicose mode,
nozzle separation distance 5 mm. (c) symmetric sinuous mode, nozzle separation
distance 20 mm. (d) alternated sinuous mode, nozzle separation distance 30 mm.
(e) independent mode, nozzle separation distance 100 mm.
the flame. Therefore, the probability of switching from the merged
varicose mode to the merged sinuous mode decreases.
As the nozzle separation distance increases further, the flame
mode translates into symmetric sinuous mode and alternated sin-
uous mode as shown in Fig. 2(c) and 2(d). The single flame is
sinuous for both modes. For symmetric sinuous mode, the two
flames are symmetric with respect to the centerline between the
two nozzles. While for alternated sinuous mode, the two flames
alternate. When the nozzle separation distance increases to a cer-
tain value, the interaction between the two flames becomes weak
and these two flames are nearly independent, as shown in Fig. 2(e).
The flame mode in Fig. 2(e) is called the complete-isolation mode.
According to previous studies, the appearing probability of sin-
uous mode or varicose mode of a single-nozzle flame is related to
the Ri number [2], whose definition is shown in Eq. (1). In addi-
tion, the variation of the flame mode is also related to the heat
release rate and the nozzle separation distance. The dimensionless
heat release rate is usually calculated by Eq. (2). Considering the
effect of the nozzle separation distance and the heat release rate,
the Mu number is defined as the product of the cubic root of the
dimensionless heat release rate Q∗ and the dimensionless nozzle
separation distance s∗ calculated by Eq. (4). It can be seen from
the experimental results that the nozzle separation distance s and
the flame height are important parameters that affect the flame
shape and the flame instability. The length of a single-nozzle flame
is known to be a function of the heat release rate. The Mu num-
ber can be viewed as the ratio of the nozzle separation distance to
the flame characteristic length. The experimental data are plotted
in Fig. 3, in which the abscissa is the Ri number and the ordinate
is the Mu number.
gDin
Ri = (1)
v2F
Q˙
Q∗ = (2)
ρ0 c p T0 g1/2 D5in/2
s
Mu =  (3)
3 QD1in/2
ρ0 c0 T0 g1/2
26 L. Changchun, L. Xinlei and G. Hong et al. / Combustion and Flame 201 (2019) 23–30
Fig. 3. Flame instability regimes for dual nozzles characterized by the variation of
the Ri number and the Mu number. (a) merged sinuous and varicose regime. (b)
symmetric sinuous regime. (c) alternated sinuous regime. (d) independent regime.
s are processed to obtain the neck width Wneck (the flame width at
s∗ = (4)
Din
Figure 3 presents a delineation of a dual-nozzle flame by the Ri
number and the Mu number, which includes four flame instabil-
ity regimes. Regime I represents the merged sinuous and varicose
regime, in which the flame mode may be merged sinuous mode or
merged varicose mode. The probability of merged varicose mode
increases with increasing Mu and Ri. Regime Ⅱ, Ⅲ and Ⅳ repre-
sent the symmetric sinuous regime, alternated sinuous regime and
independent regime, respectively. It should be noted that the tran-
sition among various regimes is rather smooth, so that the dotted
lines shown in Fig. 3 should not be considered as a sudden transi-
tion from one regime to another.
3.2. Flame mean height
Figure 4 illustrates the intermittency distribution of flame ap-
pearance of dual nozzles of 4 mm inner diameter with different
nozzle separation distances and fuel flow rates. The definition of
the mean flame height Lfm is given in Section 2. Figure 5 shows the
variation of the mean flame height Lfm with respect to the nozzle
separation distance s. It can be seen from Fig. 5 that when the noz-
zle separation distance s is less than or equal to 5 mm, the change
of flame height is barely noticeable. In these cases are, the flame is
in merged sinuous and varicose regimes as shown in Fig. 3. As the
nozzle separation distance s increases, the flame mean height Lfm
first decreases and then increases. The mean heights of the dual-
nozzle flame are similar to that of single-nozzle flames when the
nozzle separation distance s is greater than 80 mm, as shown in
Fig. 6. It is interesting that the flame mean height Lfm of the alter-
nated sinuous flames are the lowest, even lower than that of the
single-nozzle flame.
It has been found that the normalized mean flame height Lfm /D
is proportional to 1/5 power of a non-dimensional group N [21,22],
which can be calculate by Eq. (5) [21]. The equivalent hydraulic di-
ameter of the dual nozzles is calculated by Eq. (6), and the result
shows that it is equal to the nozzle inner diameter. The equivalent
hydraulic diameter is used to calculate the dimensionless number
N. The variation of the normalized flame mean height Lfm /D with
respect to the dimensionless number N is shown in Fig. 7. It is
found that when the nozzle separation distance s is smaller, the
trend of the mean height of the dual-nozzle flame is similar to
that of the single-nozzle flame, and the relation between the nor-
malized flame mean height Lfm /D and the dimensionless number
N can be written as Eq. (7). The normalized mean flame height
Lfm /Din of alternated sinuous flame is also presented in Fig. 7, and
it is also proportional to 1/5 power of the dimensionless number N,
as described by Eq. (8). The reason why Eqs. (7) and (8) are similar
may be that these experimental cases are all buoyancy-controlled
diffusion flames.
 c T 3
p 0
N= Q ∗2 (5)
Hc /r
4 ∗ (π D2in /4 + π D2in /4 )
De_dual = = Din (6)
π Din + π Din
Lf
= −1.02 + 20.6N 1/5 (7)
Din
Lf
= −1.02 + 15.6N 1/5 (8)
Din
3.3. Oscillation frequency
For each experimental case, 600 flame images in time order
20 mm above the nozzle), the flame height Hheight and the project
area Aarea . The neck width oscillation frequency fneck , the flame
height oscillation frequency fheight and the project area oscillation
frequency farea are determined through FFT analysis of Wneck , Hheight
and Aarea . W∗ neck , H∗ height and A∗ area are normalized parameters,
which are Wneck , Hheight and Aarea divided by their respective max-
imum value. Figure 8 shows the variation of the normalized neck
width, the flame height and the project area in time and frequency
domains. It can be seen from Fig. 8 that fneck , fheight and farea are
very close, and the maximum values of these parameters are used
to analyze the oscillation frequency.
As shown in Fig. 9, the oscillation frequency f first decreases
and then increases as the nozzle separation distance increases, and
then decreases again. The reason for the first drop of f is that
the occurrence probability of merged varicose mode increases with
the increase of nozzles distance, and the frequency of the varicose
mode is lower than that of the sinuous mode according to Cetegen
and Dong [2]. The reason why the flame frequency rises again and
reaches the peak value is that the flame is switched to alternated
sinuous regime, and in alternated sinuous mode the mean flame
height reduces, which causes the oscillation frequency to increase.
As the distance increases again, the interaction between the two
flames becomes weak, so that the oscillation frequency of the dual-
nozzle flame is approximately equal to that of the single-nozzle
flame.
The dimensionless numbers St and Fr, defined by Eqs. (9) and
(10) [13], are usually used to study the unsteady and periodic phe-
nomena controlled by buoyant force. For buoyancy-controlled dif-
fusion flames, the relation between St and Fr is often written as
St = constant∗ Frb , where the exponent b is negative [13]. Figure 10
shows the relationship between St and the inverse of Fr. It is found
that the oscillation frequency of the single-nozzle flame and dual-
nozzle flame of zero distance can be calculated by Eq. (11). The
alternated sinuous mode results in an increase in the flame os-
cillation frequency, which can be approximated by the maximum
value of f of different nozzle separation distances. These data are
plotted in Fig. 10(b), which are fitted to obtain Eq. (12). The sym-
metric sinuous mode results in a decrease in the flame oscillation
frequency, which is approximated by the minimum value of f of
 L. Changchun, L. Xinlei and G. Hong et al. / Combustion and Flame 201 (2019) 23–30 27

Fig. 4. Flame intermittency contour and mean flame height variation of dual nozzles of 4 mm inner diameter with different nozzle separation distances and fuel flow rates.

different nozzle separation distances. These data are also plotted in 3.4. Symmetric sinuous mode and alternated sinuous mode
Fig. 10(b), which are fitted to obtain Eq. (13). The difference among
Eqs. (11)–(13) lie only in the constant term. As can be seen from the above results, the symmetric sinu-
ous mode and the alternated sinuous mode are two special flame
f Din
St = (9) modes, whose image sequences in 45 ms are shown in Fig. 11. The
vF oscillation frequency of the symmetric sinuous flame is lower than
that of the single-nozzle flame, and the frequency of the alternated
v2F sinuous flame is higher than that of the single-nozzle flame. The
Fr = (10)
gDin height of the alternated sinuous flame is even less than that of the
single-nozzle flame.
St = 0.29F r −0.51 (11) A possible explanation of symmetric sinuous mode and the
alternated sinuous mode are schematically shown in Fig. 12. As
shown in Fig. 12(a), there is no local descending flow between
St = 0.27F r −0.51 (12) the two nozzles because the distance between them is relatively
smaller. In addition, the streamline is smoothly upward, by which
the flame is cut symmetrically. As the nozzle separation distance
St = 0.33F r −0.51 (13) increases to a certain value, as shown in Fig. 12(b), the colder air
28 L. Changchun, L. Xinlei and G. Hong et al. / Combustion and Flame 201 (2019) 23–30

Fig. 5. Flame height versus nozzle separation distance. The nozzle inner diameter
is 4 mm.

Fig. 8. Variation of normalized neck width, flame height and project area in time
and frequency domains.

Fig. 6. Flame height versus propane flow rate for single nozzle and dual nozzle.
The nozzle inner diameter is 4 mm.

Fig. 9. Oscillation frequency f versus nozzle separation distance s.

Fig. 10. Relationship between St and the inverse of Fr.

Fig. 7. Normalized fame height versus dimensionless number N.

 L. Changchun, L. Xinlei and G. Hong et al. / Combustion and Flame 201 (2019) 23–30 29

4. Conclusions

The influence of the distance between two jets on the insta-

bility mode, the oscillation frequency, and the mean height of a
flickering diffusion flame has been experimentally studied and an-
alyzed, and many interesting phenomena have been found. The in-
stability modes of the dual-nozzle flame are more complex than
that of the single-nozzle flame, and the flame height and the os-
cillation frequency of the dual-nozzle flame have their own char-
acteristics. The major findings include:

(1) With the increasing of the nozzle separation distance, the in-
stability modes can be merged sinuous mode, merged varicose
mode, symmetric sinuous mode, alternated sinuous mode or in-
dependent mode. The delineation of the flame instability based
on Mu and Ri is established, which includes four dual flame
regimes.
(2) As the nozzle separation distance increases, both the flame
mean height and the oscillation frequency changes non-
monotonically. With the increase of the nozzle separation dis-
tance, the flame height first decreases and then increases,
whereas the oscillation frequency decreases first, then increases
nozzle separation distance and finally decreases again. The
reason is that the symmetric sinuous and alternated sinuous
modes appear as the nozzle separation distance increases. The
oscillation frequency of the symmetric sinuous flame is lower
than that of the single-nozzle flame, and the frequency of the
alternated sinuous flame is higher than that of the single-
nozzle flame. The height the of alternated sinuous flame is even
less than that of the single-nozzle flame.
(3) The normalized mean flame height Lfm /D and the oscillation
frequency f of the alternated sinuous flame are proportional to
N1/5 and Fr−0.51 , respectively.
(4) The colder air flow declines locally between the nozzles to form
vortices that interfere with the flame morphology, shedding
and changing periodically, which is one of the main reasons to
Fig. 11. Image sequences of symmetric sinuous flame and alternated sinuous flame.
form the alternated sinuous flame.

Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foun-

dation of China (Nos. 51604215 and 51576196), China Postdoctoral
Science Foundation (No. 2016M590962), the Fundamental Research
Funds for the Central Universities (No. 2018MS029), and the Natu-
ral Science Basic Research Plan in Shaanxi Province of China (Nos.
2018JM5078 and 2017JM5068).

References

Fig. 12. Schematic depiction of the symmetric sinuous and alternated sinuous
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air flow and increases the burning speed. Therefore, the oscillation
frequency of the alternated sinuous flame is higher than that of
the single-nozzle flame, and the height of the alternated sinuous
flame is lower than that of the single-nozzle flame.
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