Experimental Study of Spray Flame Characteristics in Hot-Diluted Oxidant Through Advanced Image Processing Technique

Abstract

This paper presents a study of ethanol jet spray flame characteristics in a hot-diluted oxidant with different co-flow oxygen concentrations and fuel/air mass flow rate ratios (MF/MA ratios) through advance image processing technique. An air-blast atomizer was located in a McKenna burner which was utilized to provide stable combustion surroundings and variable combustion atmosphere for ethanol jet spray. The co-flow oxygen concentrations were set to 5%, 10%, 15% and 21% (by volume) by adjusting the mass flow rates of CH4, O2 and N2. The MF/MA ratios were set to 0.245, 0.490, 0.735, and 0.980 by adjusting the fuel mass flow rate and the carrier air mass flow rate. A high-speed RGB CCD camera was employed to capture spray flame images continuously. Spray flame edge is detected using an auto-adaptive edge-detection algorithm which could detect the spray flame edge continuously and clearly. A flame zone is defined as the region surrounded by the detected flame edge to obtain flame parameters. Spray flame characteristics are described using the measured flame parameters, involving flame area, length, brightness, nonuniformity and temperature which are derived from the spray flame images. Spray flame area, length, brightness and nonuniformity are extracted through image processing technique directly. Moreover, two-dimensional (2D) temperature profiling of spray flame is obtained by coupling image processing technique with two-color pyrometry based on Planck’s radiation law. The effects of co-flow oxygen concentration and MF/MA ratio on spray flame characteristics are investigated in this work. The spray flame parameters are observed to be sensitive to both co-flow oxygen concentration and MF/MA ratio. The results show that the fuel mass flow rate (MF) has opposite effects on spray flame characteristics compared with the carrier air mass flow rate (MA) in hot-diluted oxidant. Spray flame area and length are shown to decrease for higher co-flow oxygen concentrations, while spray flame brightness, uniformity and temperature are observed to increase for higher co-flow oxygen concentrations, owing to the enhancement of the combustion rate. A higher MF/MA ratio leads to higher spray flame area, length, brightness, uniformity and temperature, due to the increase of the droplet residence time or droplet concentration in hot-diluted oxidant. In the same MF/MA ratio, spray flame area and length are found to be smaller at a higher fuel flow rate (or carrier air flow rate). However, spray flame brightness, uniformity and temperature are demonstrated to be enhanced at a higher fuel flow rate (or carrier air flow rate). (CSPE)