Mehrvarzi, C. O.Paul, Mark R.2024-10-092024-10-092014-07-211539-3755https://hdl.handle.net/10919/121316We investigate numerically the dynamics of a propagating front in the presence of a spatiotemporally chaotic flow field. The flow field is the three-dimensional time-dependent state of spiral defect chaos generated by Rayleigh-Bénard convection in a spatially extended domain. Using large-scale parallel numerical simulations, we simultaneously solve the Boussinesq equations and a reaction-advection-diffusion equation with a Fischer-Kolmogorov-Petrovskii-Piskunov reaction for the transport of the scalar species in a large-aspect-ratio cylindrical domain for experimentally accessible conditions. We explore the front dynamics and geometry in the low-Damköhler-number regime, where the effect of the flow field is significant. Our results show that the chaotic flow field enhances the front propagation when compared with a purely cellular flow field. We quantify this enhancement by computing the spreading rate of the reaction products for a range of parameters. We use our results to quantify the complexity of the three-dimensional front geometry for a range of chaotic flow conditions.7 page(s)application/pdfenIn CopyrightNonlinear DynamicsConvectionHydrodynamicsSpatio-Temporal AnalysisArticle - Refereedhttps://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevE.90.012905901Paul, Mark [0000-0002-0701-1955]251223581550-2376