Measurement of laminar burning speed and investigation of flame stability of syngas/air mixture

Abstract

Synthetic gas (Syngas) is a growing alternative fuel for fossil fuel used in power generation industries. It is cost effective and friendly with the ecosystem. In order to validate its capability as fuel supply, determination of syngas laminar burning speed is fundamental to understand its combustion behavior and kinetic model. Laminar burning speed of syngas with 5% of hydrogen and 95% carbon monoxide mixture has been measured using a constant volume cylindrical chamber and schlieren photography. The laminar burning speed has been measured in the range of temperature from 315 K to 490 K and range of pressure from 0.5 atm to 3.2 atm. The equivalence ratios for the combustible mixture ranged from 0.6 to 5. The thermodynamic model for calculating the laminar burning speed is based on the pressure rise method considering energy losses to the ignition source, unburned gas and chamber wall. The structure of the flame was studied through the shadowgraph method. Laminar burning speeds have only been reported for smooth flame. The results indicated that the laminar burning speed increases with increasing temperature and decreases as pressure increases. Flame cellularity was found to develop at early stage at high initial pressures. The measured burning speed has been compared with other researchers’ data and the results were in a good agreement.