An important new area of current research in combustion science is reviewed in the contributions to this volume. The complicated phenomena of combustion, such as chemical reactions, heat and mass transfer, and gaseous flows, have so far been studied predominantly by experiment and by phenomenological approaches. But asymptotic analysis and other recent developments are rapidly changing this situation. The contributions in this volume are devoted to mathematical modeling in three areas: high Mach number combustion, complex chemistry and physics, and flame modeling in small scale turbulent flow combustion.

This book delves into the rapidly changing area of combustion, in which asymptotic methods and bifurcation theory have made a significant impact as have the constant-density, small-heat-release models and other important contributions.

An introduction to far-reaching developments in theoretical combustion, with special emphasis on flame stability, a topic that has, to date, benefited most from the application of modern asymptotic methods. The authors provide a modern view of flame theory, and a complete description of the longstanding ignition and explosion problems, including the solutions that were made available independently by Kapila and Kassoy through activation-energy asymptotics, the main theme of this monograph.