Time variation of combustion temperature and burning time of a single iron particle

Abstract

In the present study, combustion of a single iron particle is modeled by virtue of a novel thermophysical procedure. The temperature of iron particle during combustion is studied analytically and numerically. In the proposed model, the effect of thermal radiation from the external surface of burning particle, and alterations of density of iron particle with temperature are considered. Iron particle burns heterogeneously in air. Because of high thermal conductivity and micro size of iron particle, the Biot number is negligibly small, and the lumped system analysis can be utilized for the combustion modeling. The nonlinear energy equation resulted from modeling is solved by using homotopy perturbation method. The assumptions applied in the modeling are such that do not violate the actual combustion phenomenon. Also, the numerical solution of nonlinear differential equation is presented and compared with the analytical solution obtained from homotopy method. It is the first model presented for analyzing the combustion of single iron particle.