Calculation and analysis of the flamelet library for numerical modelling of the non-premixed combustion of natural gas in a pilot burner

Abstract

The flamelet modelling concept has been employed for numerical simulation of the non-premixed combustion of natural gas in a pilot burner of novel type. This prospective laboratory-scale burner device is featured by axial supply of high-speed jet of flue gases, while the fuel (natural gas) and the oxidizer (air) are supplied radially and separately inside the burner chamber. With the use of chemical kinetics mechanism for natural gas (62 species, 398 reactions) the flamelet library has been generated, from its analysis the flame quenching has been determined at the scalar dissipation rate limit of 42 (1/s). From this library the lookup-table of thermochemical solution has been pre-calculated with the presumed beta-function pdf averaging. On this basis the numerical simulation of aerodynamics, heat transfer and the natural gas combustion processes, including soot formation and its effect on radiative heat transfer, has been performed in the considered pilot burner run at the thermal load of 8.8 kW and air excess coefficient of 0.85 (inside the burner body). The distributions of gas species are presented. The predicted NOx emission in exhaust gases is 48.8 mg/m3 for the studied burner regime.