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Title

Critical behaviour in a three-step reaction kinetics model
Authors

S. O. Ajadi
V. Gol'dshtein
Journal / Anthology

Combustion Theory and Modelling
Year: 2009
Volume: 13
Issue: 1
Page range: 1-16
Description

We examine the role of a more detailed chemistry comprising the initiation, branching/ propagation and termination steps in the theory of combustion, formulated on some class A geometries. This is with a view to investigating the impact of the termination reaction step, which is exothermic, and the temperature-dependent pre-exponential factor, on the critical behaviour of the system. Using an effective activation energy (EAE) approximation, the stationary nonlinear governing heat equation is analysed using a variationalmethod implemented in the Mathematica package. In addition, using an adiabatic approximation, an expression for the ignition time was obtained for the homogeneous system. The effects of the termination reaction step and variable pre-exponential factor on the thermal ignition parameters were established. Apart from validating known results, the results obtained gave further insight into the behaviour of the system.
Subject

*Unclassified
Keywords

Criticality, Ignition, Effective activation energy, Class A geometries, Variational, method