Effects of inlet parameters on combustion characteristics of premixed CH4/Air in micro channels

Abstract

In order to improve the stability of combustion and the working performance of the micro-combustor, this paper focuses on the effects of inlet parameters such as inlet temperature, mass flow rate and equivalence ratio. Three micro-combustors with different channel-heights are fabricated, and the three-dimensional calculation model is built to research on the combustion characteristics of premixed CH4/Air mixture. It was found that with inlet gas mixture temperature increasing, the flammability limits of the combustion under micro-scale conditions were expanded, and the channel height under which the flame can exist in the combustor reduced from 3.0 mm to 2.0 mm after preheating. On the preheating basis, increasing the equivalence ratio of the gas mixture Ф improved the intensity of gas-phase reaction due to the simulation of the important free radical like OH. Furthermore, when the inlet mass flow rate of methane mch4•was increased and between m1ch4•and m5ch4•, it shows that the external wall temperature was higher in the micro-combustor of H = 2.5 mm compared with that of H = 3.0 mm. When in the micro-combustor of H = 3.0 mm, more fuel could be burned and mmaxch4• = 2.85 × 10−6 kg/s.