Flame Acceleration in Stoichiometric CH4/H2/air Mixtures with Different Hydrogen Blend Ratios in an Obstructed Channel

Abstract

ABSTRACT Adding a certain percentage of hydrogen into the natural gas pipeline network is regarded as an efficient way to store and transport hydrogen. CH4-H2 binary fuel is also considered to be an important means of hydrogen utilization. In this paper, flame acceleration (FA) in stoichiometric CH4/H2/air mixtures with various hydrogen blend ratios (i.e., Hbr = 0%, 20%, 50%, 80%, and 100%) was studied experimentally and numerically. In the experiments, high-speed photography was used to record the FA process. In the numerical simulations, the two-dimensional, fully-compressible, reactive Navier-Stokes equations were solved using a high-order algorithm on a dynamically adapting mesh. The chemical reaction and diffusive transport of the mixtures were described by a calibrated chemical-diffusive model. The numerical predictions agree reasonably with the experimental measurements. The results show that a larger hydrogen blend ratio leads to a faster FA. The difference in FA due to hydrogen blending mainly depends on the property change of the fuel mixtures, the increase of flame surface area and the interactions between flame and pressure waves, corresponding to three different stages. In addition, the heat loss to the channel walls and obstacle surfaces has an impact on the FA process, especially in the mixtures with low hydrogen blend ratios (i.e., Hbr ≤ 20%). This is related to the weakening of interactions between pressure waves and flame under isothermal boundary condition.