Exothermic Diffusion-Reaction and Explosion Branch-Chain of an Asymmetrical Heating Channel with Convective Cooling

Abstract

ABSTRACT The need to prevent uncontrollable or thermal runaway, which could potentially result in the formation of undesired reaction products or hazardous conditions, stimulated studies of thermal combustible processes. As such, this analysis focuses on the exothermic reactive species and thermal explosion of an asymmetrical heating channel with convective cooling satisfying Newton’s law of cooling. With reactant consumption, the species reaction is induced by initiation rate, branch-chain order, and chemical kinetics. A generalized Arrhenius kinetic with activation energy is considered for the energy balance model, and the system is assumed to undergo isobaric processes. The solutions to the model in graphs and tables are obtained via a semi-discretization finite difference technique, which is found to be stable and converge appropriately. The study revealed that activation energy influenced the chemical reaction without having a direct effect on heat generation. The thermal distribution is enhanced with variation in initiation rate, Biot number, and Frank-Kamenetskii terms. A variation in the initial condition strongly impacted the combustible heat distribution. Hence, in a combustion process, thermal system efficiency can be maintained by controlling excessive heat generation that can lead to unsafe conditions.