Modeling and simulation of fingering pattern formation in a combustion model

Abstract

We consider a model of gas–solid combustion with free interface proposed by L. Kagan and G. I. Sivashinsky. Our approach is twofold: (I) We eliminate the front and get to a fully nonlinear system with boundary conditions; (II) We use a fourth-order pseudo-differential equation for the front to achieve asymptotic regimes in rescaled variables. In both cases, we implement a numerical algorithm based on spectral method and represent numerically the evolution of the char. Fingering pattern formation occurs when the planar front is unstable. A series of simulations is presented to demonstrate the evolution of sparse fingers (I) and chaotic fingering (II).