ABSTRACT
Combustion is described as “the rapid oxidation of a fuel resulting in the release of usable heat and production of a visible ˆame.”1 Combustion is used to generate 90% of the world’s power.2 Regarding the science of combustion, Liñán and Williams wrote the following:
Chomiak wrote the following: “In spite of their fundamental importance and practical applications, combustion processes are far from being fully understood.”4 In Strahle’s opinion, “combustion is a dif“cult subject, being truly interdisciplinary and requiring the merging of knowledge in several “elds.”5 It involves the study of chemistry, kinetics, thermodynamics, electromagnetic radiation, aerodynamics, and ˆuid mechanics, including multiphase ˆow and turbulence, heat and mass transfer, and quantum mechanics to name a few. Regarding combustion research,
In one of the classic books on combustion, Lewis and von Elbe wrote the following:
Despite the length of time it has been around, despite its importance to man, and despite vast amounts of research, combustion is still far from being completely understood. One of the purposes of this book is to improve that understanding, particularly in industrial combustion applications in the process and power generation industries.
