Effects of C2H4 on chemical kinetic characteristics of CH4-air explosion

Abstract

There is a small amount of other flammable gases other than the major constituent of methane in mine gas. The flammable gases have critical effects on gas explosion. Appropriate understandings of the effects of flammable gases on chemical kinetic characteristics of CH4-air explosion are essential to prevent and control gas explosion in mine. Therefore, the numerical simulations are conducted through the software of CHEMKIN to investigate the effects. The present study is mainly to analyse the variation of the pressure, temperature, products, free radicals and sensitivity of CH4 in the process of the gas explosion after addition of C2H4. The results obtained show that the addition of C2H4 makes the explosion time shorter, maximum explosion pressure and maximum explosion temperature larger, that the addition of C2H4 contributes to the increase of the product of CO and the decrease of NO and NO2, and makes CO2 increase first, and then decrease, and that the addition of C2H4 can improve the gas explosion due to the fact that the addition of C2H4 has a great effect on the reaction #38 and #119, making the two reaction dominant, thereby generating a large number of free radicals.