Abstract
Present technology has been shifting towards miniaturization of devices for energy production for portable electronics. Micro-combustors, when incorporated into a micro-power generation system, create the energy desired in the form of hot gases to power such technology. This creates the need for a design optimization of the micro-combustor in terms of geometry, fuel choice, and material selection. A total of five micro-combustor geometries, three fuels, and three materials were computationally simulated in different configurations in order to determine the optimal micro-combustor design for highest efficiency. Inlet velocity, equivalence ratio, and wall heat transfer coefficient were varied in order to test a comprehensive range of micro-combustor parameters. All simulations completed for the optimization study used ANSYS Fluent v16.1 and post-processing of the data was done in CFD Post v16.1. It was found that for lean, premixed fuel-air mixtures (φ = 0.6 - 0.9) ethane (C2H6) provided the highest flame temperatures when ignited within the micro-combustor geometries. An aluminum oxide converging micro-combustor burning ethane and air at an equivalence ratio of 0.9, an inlet velocity of 0.5 m/s, and heat transfer coefficient of 5 W/m2-K was found to produce the highest combustor efficiency, making it the optimal choice for a micro-combustor design. It is proposed that this geometry be experimentally and computationally investigated further in order to determine if additional optimization can be achieved.
Highlights
Present technology has been shifting towards miniaturization of devices for energy production in order to be useful to the everyday person
As early as 1997 the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Gas Turbine Laboratory produced a study on fabrication of a micro gas turbine generator, which has been credited as being the impetus for the design of microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) devices [1]
The results and discussion provided all center on maximum temperatures calculated in the micro-combustor simulations due to the fact that micro-combustor efficiency and exit temperature are directly related: the higher the maximum temperature seen in the micro-combustor, the higher the exit temperature and the efficiency will be
Summary
Present technology has been shifting towards miniaturization of devices for energy production in order to be useful to the everyday person This miniaturization has created the need for micro-combustion, the exothermic. A burst of energy in the form of high temperature gases is produced and can be harnessed by a micro-turbine in a mechanical system in order to generate power for use in the previously mentioned electronic devices. MEMS (microelectromechanical systems) devices, in which micro-combustors are chief components, are being developed in order to match their largescale counterparts in thermal, electrical, and mechanical power densities [6]. Such mechanisms have the potential to achieve similar performance but at a much smaller physical scale. Micro-combustors have applications in micro-propulsion where they have been used to generate thrust and provide control for small satellites [7]
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