Autoignited lifted flames of dimethyl ether in heated coflow air

Abstract

Autoignited lifted flames of dimethyl ether (DME) in laminar nonpremixed jets with high-temperature coflow air have been studied experimentally. When the initial temperature was elevated to over 860 K, an autoignition occurred without requiring an external ignition source. A planar laser-induced fluorescence (PLIF) technique for formaldehyde (CH2O) visualized qualitatively the zone of low temperature kinetics in a premixed flame. Two flame configurations were investigated; (1) autoignited lifted flames with tribrachial edge having three distinct branches of a lean and a rich premixed flame wings with a trailing diffusion flame and (2) autoignited lifted flames with mild combustion when the fuel was highly diluted. For the autoignited tribrachial edge flames at critical autoignition conditions, exhibiting repetitive extinction and re-ignition phenomena near a blowout condition, the characteristic flow time (liftoff height scaled with jet velocity) was correlated with the square of the ignition delay time of the stoichiometric mixture. The liftoff heights were also correlated as a function of jet velocity times the square of ignition delay time. Formaldehydes were observed between the fuel nozzle and the lifted flame edge, emphasizing a low-temperature kinetics for autoignited lifted flames, while for a non-autoignited lifted flame, formaldehydes were observed near a thin luminous flame zone.For the autoignited lifted flames with mild combustion, especially at a high temperature, a unique non-monotonic liftoff height behavior was observed; decreasing and then increasing liftoff height with jet velocity. This behavior was similar to the binary mixture fuels of CH4/H2 and CO/H2 observed previously. A transient homogeneous autoignition analysis suggested that such decreasing behavior with jet velocity can be attributed to partial oxidation characteristics of DME in producing appreciable amounts of CH4/CO/H2 ahead of the edge flame region.