A well-stirred-reactor investigation of the combustion of propane with vitiated air

Abstract

A well-stirred-reactor investigation was conducted to determine the effect of partial air vitiation on propane-air blowout rates. A central-feed zirconia spherical reactor with a diameter of 7.6 cm was used to observe 158 fuel-lean blowouts and 98 fuel-rich blowouts. A propane-air slave burner produced the vitiated air in which the conversion of propane to carbon dioxide was found to be 98 to 100 percent complete. An analysis of recirculation patterns in the reactor was used to correct for the effect of deviations caused by imperfect mixing. The results show that the observed blowout limit decreases by a factor of about 2.6 for each 10 percent increase in air vitiation. An inlet temperature parameter was determined as a function of net equivalence ratio and air vitiation. An over-all correlation of the blowout data has been obtained by incorporating the degree of vitiation and the inlet temperature into a modified loading parameter which is a function of net equivalence ratio.