MEMS-based combustor with hairpin-shape design of gas recirculation channel

Abstract

This paper describes the design, fabrication and test of a silicon-based micro combustor, which is a part of a micro power generation system under development. Based on the three-dimensional computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulation and analysis of different micro combustor design, a hairpin-shape design for air/fuel recirculation channel is adopted. The combustor is fabricated from seven single crystal silicon wafers using deep reactive ion etching (DRIE) process. It has been assembled successfully with gas tubing and thermal couplers for monitoring the exit gas temperature. The effect of mass flow rate on the combustion characteristics is studied experimentally and numerically under several operating conditions. The exhaust gas temperature can reach the range from 870 to 1,100 K. The results indicate that with the increases of the mass flow rate, the combustor exhaust gas temperature increase as well in both experimental and the simulated results. This is due to the heat released in the combustor increases with the fuel/air mass flow rate.