Laser ablation plasma-assisted stabilization of premixed methane/air flame

Abstract

Laser ablation plasma has been applied to assist stabilization of premixed methane/air flames with a flow speed up to 15.3 m/s. The ablation plasma was generated using the 50 Hz, 1064 nm output of a Nd:YAG laser onto a tantalum slab. With the ablation plasma, the stabilization equivalence ratio has been extended to the fuel-leaner end and the blow off limits have been enhanced by from 3.6- to 14.8-folds for flames which can stabilize without the plasma. The laser pulse energy required for flameholding was reduced to 10 mJ, a 64 % reduction compared with that of gas breakdown plasma, which will ease the demand for high-power lasers for high-frequency plasma generation. The temporal evolutions of the flame kernels following the ablation plasma were investigated using the OH* chemiluminescence imaging approach, and the flame propagation speed (v f) was measured from the flame kernel evolutions. With the ablation plasma, the v f with flow speed of 4.7–9.0 m/s and equivalence ratio of 1.4 has been enhanced from 0.175 m/s of laminar premixed methane/air flame to 2.79–4.52 and 1.59–5.46 m/s, respectively, in the early and late time following the ablation plasma. The increase in the combustion radical concentrations by the ablation plasma was thought to be responsible for the v f enhancement and the resulted flame stabilization.