Mixing and chemical reaction in the laminar wake of a flat plate

Abstract

The initial value problem presented by mixing and chemical reaction in the wake of a flat plate is solved using the boundarylayer approximation. When a cool combustible mixture and its hot combustion products are separated by a finite, perfectly insulating flat plate, the velocity, temperature, and combustible concentration are determined in the vicinity of the trailing edge.The mixing problem without chemical reaction is solved in terms of a ‘universal solution’ for a given initial temperature ratio and Prandtl number from which the solution for arbitrary temperature ratios can be obtained.The mixing problem with chemical reaction is solved in terms of a ‘universal solution’ for the first two terms of an assumed series solution for the temperature. In this case the ‘universality’ is with respect to a parameter B characterizing the chemical and hydrodynamic initial conditions.The axial distance from the trailing edge to the first local temperature maximum is given in terms of the initial conditions and is shown to be greatly shortened by the presence of the viscous wake as compared with non-viscous mixing.