CRITERIA FOR THERMAL EXPLOSIONS WITH AND WITHOUT REACTANT CONSUMPTION

Thermal explosions occur when reactions evolve heat too rapidly for a stable balance between heat production and heat loss to be preserved. Even when reactions are kinetically simple, and obey the Arrhenius equation, the differential equations for heat balance and reactant consumption cannot be solved explicitly to express temperatures and concentrations as functions of time unless strong simplifications are made. The present paper is concerned especially with the relation between the spatially uniform and distributed temperature cases, with the effect of approximations to the Arrhenius term, and with Frank-Kamenetskii's treatment of ignition.