The ignition characteristics of the pre-chamber turbulent jet ignition of the hydrogen and methane based on different orifices

Abstract

In this paper, the combustion characteristics of premixed CH4-air and H2-air mixtures with different excess air coefficients ignited by hot jet or jet flame are investigated experimentally in a constant volume combustion chamber (CVCC). The small volume pre-chambers with different orifices (2 or 3 mm in diameter) in the passive or active pre-chamber were selected. Both the high-speed Schlieren and OH∗ chemiluminescence imaging are applied to visualize the turbulent jet ignition (TJI) process in the main chamber. Results show that the variation of orifice has diverse influences on the turbulent jet ignitions of methane and hydrogen. Smaller orifices will reduce the temperature of the jet due to the stronger stretch and throttling effect, including change of lean flammability limit, ignition delay, and re-ignition location. Furthermore, shock waves and pressure oscillations were captured in the experiments with hydrogen jets. The former is related to the jet velocity, while the latter is mainly affected by the mixture thermodynamic states in the main chamber. Furthermore, the re-ignition location is discussed. If the mixture reactivity and the jet energy are sufficiently high, the reaction will be initiated at the tip of the jet in a short time. On the contrary, a relatively long time is required to prepare the mixture during the entrainment when the reactivity is not high enough, and the corresponding re-ignition location will move towards the orifice exit owing to the temperature decline at the tip. Finally, the ignition mode transition of hydrogen jet in lean cases with a 2 mm orifice is explained.