An experimental study on the flame instability of NH3/DME blends with H2 addition

Abstract

It is of significance to investigate the effect of H2 on the combustion of NH3/DME blends since NH3 can partially decompose to produce hydrogen (H2) in the combustion process. However, few studies were conducted on NH3/DME/H2 mixtures, especially for flame instability. This work presents an experimental study of the flame instability of NH3/DME blends with H2 addition. Experiments were conducted using the spherical constant-volume combustion method at φ = 0.7 – 1.4, Tu = 298 K. The influences of NH3/DME blend ratio (BNH3/DME = 80/60, 60/40, 40/60, and 20/80), initial pressure (Pu = 0.1 – 0.5 MPa), and H2 fraction (XH2 = 0%, 20%, and 40%) on the flame instability were examined in detail. The results show that increasing either DME fraction or initial pressure can promote the hydrodynamic instability of NH3/DME/air flames because of the decreased flame thickness. For both XH2 = 0% and 20%, the cellular flame instability with BNH3/DME = 40/60 and 20/80 increases with increasing equivalence ratio. For XH2 = 40%, the flame instability shows a similar trend with BNH3/DME = 20/80, but the most unstable flame appears around stoichiometric combustion with BNH3/DME = 40/60. This is due to the compound effects of the diffusive-thermal imbalance and hydrodynamic instability for lean or rich fuel, while the diffusive-thermal instability can be neglected for stoichiometric combustion. Therefore, an effective control of H2 or DME addition can help enhance the combustion performance of the fuel while reducing the occurrence of dangerous events caused by potential flame instabilities. In addition, critical parameters, i.e., critical flame radius rcr, critical Peclet number Pecr, and critical Karlovitz stretch factor Kacr were analyzed to quantify the onset of flame instability. This work provides insights into the flame instabilities of NH3/DME with H2 addition.