Dynamic Characterization of Candle Flame

Abstract

The present work focuses on studying the flickering of a candle placed in a hollow cylindrical glass tube. Variations in flame area and intensity have been studied as the oscillating parameters of the flame with a camera and a Photomultiplier tube (PMT), and results have been found to be indicative of the presence of some well defined peaks in the amplitude spectrum of the flame intensity. Tests have been carried out with a range of candle diameters for the same glass tube giving similar results. Fluctuations in fractal dimension of the flame structure have also been studied in the course of the work. The time series data generated by processing camera images and also the PMT voltage output has been studied for existence of periodicity in the signal recorded. The correlation dimension has been determined for a number of experiments to characterize the dynamics of the signal.