PERSPECTIVE - AERODYNAMIC CONTROL OF COMBUSTION

To do useful work, the exothermic process of combustion should be carr ied out in an enclosure, as is typically the case with i.c. engines-th e subject of this paper's particular concern. To meet the requirements of high efficiency and low pollutant production, this process should be executed at a relatively low temperature-a condition attainable by the use of lean air-fuel mixtures. For this purpose it has to be distr ibuted in space upon multipoint initiation and kept away from the wall s to minimize their detrimental effects. In principle, all this can be accomplished by a system referred to as fireball combustion that take s advantage of entrainment and spiral mixing associated with large sca le vortex structures of jet plumes. As demonstrated in this paper, the success in such an endeavor depends crucially upon the utilization of the essential elements of classical aerodynamics: the properly distri buted sources, expressed in terms of velocity divergences prescribed b y the thermodynamic process of combustion and of the vorticity field g enerated by shear between the jets and the fluid into which they are i njected.