The Zeldovich number is a dimensionless number which provides a quantitative measure for the activation energy of a chemical reaction which appears in the Arrhenius exponent, named after the Russian scientist Yakov Borisovich Zeldovich, who along with David A. Frank-Kamenetskii, first introduced in their paper in 1938.
[1][2][3] In 1983 ICDERS meeting at Poitiers, it was decided that the non-dimensional number will be named after Zeldovich.
[4] It is defined as where In terms of heat release parameter
, it is given by For typical combustion phenomena, the value for Zel'dovich number lies in the range
Activation energy asymptotics uses this number as the large parameter of expansion.