First Experimental Study of the Darrieus-Landau Instability

This paper presents the first direct experimental measurements of the growth rate of the Darrieus-Landau instability on a planar laminar premixed flame front. Prior to measurements, the intrinsically unstable flame is maintained stable by a novel technique based on the response of the flame to an acoustic parametric forcing. The growth rates of the instability, measured when the forcing is removed, are in agreement with the theoretically predicted values.