Fuel-rich Flames Research Articles

Effects of flame impingement on the stability and NO/CO emissions of laminar premixed methane-ammonia impinging flame

This study investigates the stable combustion range and CO/NO emissions of laminar premixed CH4-NH3 impinging flames experimentally. Effects of flame impingement on the flame stability and CO/NO formations are analyzed quantitatively. The result shows that the flame impingement improves the flame stability considerably through decelerating the unburned gases velocity in the stagnation region, with smaller nozzle-to-wall distance (H) exerting stronger improvement on the flame stability. The NO emission is increased initially but dropped finally with the increased H. This trend is ascribed to the suppressed NO productions at both small and large H due to the intensive cooling effects of cold wall and ambient air entrainment respectively in consideration of the relatively inferior reactivity of NH3. Additionally, due to the insufficient oxidizer in the fuel-rich flame, the more NH3 molecule can also facilitate the NO destruction via the DeNOx pathways at small or large H. In contrast, the CO emissions show similar variation trends with H like the NO emission for the fuel-lean and stoichiometric flames, while the CO emission has a “N” type variation trend with H for the fuel-rich flames. Since the CH4 reactivity can be improved by the NH3 addition at low temperatures, a low-temperature environment at small H due to the strong cooling effect, as well as more available NH3 in the flame, can effectively highlight the improvement of NH3 on the CH4 reactivity in the fuel-rich flame. This makes for the CO production at small H combined with the insufficient oxidizer and eventually results in the higher CO emission of the fuel-rich flame at small H. Additionally, the decreased CO emission at large H results from the improved CO oxidation that is caused by the increased residence time and more oxidizer from ambient air.

Experimental and numerical investigations of the laminar burning velocities of premixed fuel-rich methane oxy-fuel and oxygen-enhanced flames

In the context of Oxy-fuel combustion, there is a strong industrial interest in highly fuel-rich flames, characterized by an equivalence ratio (Φ) exceeding 2.5, for the production of H2-CO-rich synthesis gas. The validation of existing chemical reaction mechanisms for this specific regime pose a significant challenge due to the scarcity of experimental data for this particular range of equivalence ratio.The scope of this study was therefore the determination of the laminar burning velocity sL of ultra-rich CH4-O2 flames under varying conditions, such as high equivalence ratios and preheating temperatures using the heat flux burner method. The laminar burning velocity was determined for equivalence ratio within the range of 2.3 < Φ < 3.6 and preheating temperature ranging from 300 K to 455 K. Additionally, the impact of the of reducing the oxygen content in the oxidizer on sL was investigated by argon addition in molar percentages ranging from 40 % to 100 %.The results of our study reveal laminar burning velocities ranging from 5 cm/s to 45 cm/s for pure oxy-fuel CH4 flames. Preheating is shown to increase sL and this effect can be represented by a power law correlation sL = sL,0(T/T0)α with α = 1.53. Furthermore, the dilution of the oxidizer with argon leads to a significant decrease in sL of approximately 50 % compared to pure oxy-fuel flames. It is worth noting that detailed reaction mechanisms in combination with molecular transport data are typically not validated within the selected equivalence ratio range.To assess the performance of such reaction schemes in predicting laminar burning velocity under the specified selected conditions, we evaluated 13 different reaction mechanisms sourced from the literature. We compared the laminar burning velocities obtained through calculations of laminar premixed 1D flames and, additionally compared these with experimental data. A sensitivity analysis of the laminar burning velocity were carried out for selected mechanisms. Among the mechanisms, the CalTech2.3 mechanism exhibited the most consistent and accurate performance, particularly at high equivalence ratios.

Temperature and Thermal Diffusivity Diagnostics in Laminar Methane Flames Using Infrared Four-Wave Mixing Techniques.

Four-wave mixing techniques, such as coherent anti-Stokes Raman spectroscopy (CARS), laser-induced grating spectroscopy (LIGS), and degenerate four-wave mixing (DFWM), have been widely used in combustion diagnostics due to their advantages of high signal-to-noise ratio (S/N), coherent signal, and spatial resolution. In this work, a nano-second pulsed laser is utilized to generate mid-infrared (near 3 µm) pump beams, exciting the rovibrational transitions of nascent water in flames. Combined LIGS and DFWM measurements are demonstrated in premixed laminar CH4/O2/N2 flames with equivalence ratios from 0.6 to 1.5, to achieve precise thermometry in a wide range of flame conditions. The flame temperatures were also measured by thermocouple as a reference, and the results from LIGS and DFWM align well with the trends shown in the thermocouple measurements. In fuel-lean flames, where the mass-to-specific-heat ratio variation is minimal, LIGS provides temperature data with a precision better than 16 K (0.8%). In fuel-rich flames, where the increased H2 concentration in the flame introduces uncertainty in gas constants thus affecting the accuracy of LIGS thermometry, DFWM is instead employed for temperature measurement since it is less sensitive to the gas composition within the measured volume. The high-precision LIGS temperatures in lean flames serve as temperature reference during the DFWM calibration of the degree of saturation, and a precision better than 90 K (4.5%) is achieved for DFWM thermometry. In addition to temperature, a theoretical model is employed to fit LIGS signal time waveforms, extracting the local speed of sound and thermal diffusivity with precisions better than 0.5% and 1.3%, respectively. These high-precision measurements contribute additional data for flame research and simulation calculations. This way, the combined use of DFWM and LIGS proves the potential for accurate thermometry and diagnostics of other thermodynamic parameters across a wide range of flame conditions.

Laminar flame stability analysis of ammonia-methane and ammonia-hydrogen dual-fuel combustion

In recent years, dual-fuel combustion of ammonia blended with reactive fuels like methane or hydrogen has gained attention for reduced carbon emissions. This study investigates the stability of NH3-CH4 and NH3-H2 laminar propagating flames, utilizing experimental and numerical methods. It covers an extensive span of equivalence ratios (0.7–1.6), fuel compositions, and a variety of initial temperatures (300–600 K), as well as pressures ranging from 1 to 5 bar·NH3-CH4 blends exhibit stability across all equivalence ratios, with Markstein lengths of 0.02–2.49. In contrast, NH3-H2 flames display significant variations in Markstein lengths, ranging from 3.73 to −3.36 at an equivalence ratio of 0.7, particularly destabilizing fuel-lean flames due to heightened preferential-diffusional instabilities. Increasing ammonia content stabilizes fuel-rich flames but destabilizes fuel-lean ones. As ammonia content rises, both NH3-CH4 and NH3-H2 flames become more hydrodynamically stable due to flame thickening, although this can exacerbate flame instabilities when preferential-diffusional instabilities dominate. Additionally, preheating destabilizes both ammonia-methane and ammonia-hydrogen flames hydrodynamically, while pressure affects NH3-CH4 and NH3-H2 mixtures oppositely, destabilizing the former and stabilizing the latter due to reduced flame thickness. The addition of diluents stabilizes NH3-CH4 flames but destabilizes NH3-H2 flames, influencing Le and Ze numbers. Diluent addition significantly reduces the flame temperature gradient (up to 64 %), resulting in thicker flames and enhanced hydrodynamic stabilities. This research provides insights into the complexities of ammonia-blended dual-fuel combustion and its impact on flame stability under various conditions.

Combustion conditions influence toxicity of flame-generated soot to ocular (ARPE-19) cells.

Soot is a prevalent aerosol found both indoors and outdoors that has several sources, such as natural (e.g., wildfires), civilian (e.g., cooking), or military (e.g., burn pit operation). Additionally, within the sources, factors that influence the physicochemical properties of the soot include combustion temperature, oxygen availability, and fuel type. Being able to reproduce soot in the laboratory and systematically assess its toxicity is important in the pursuit of elucidating pathologies associated with its exposure. Of the organs of interest, we targeted the eye given the scant attention received. Yet, air pollution constituents such as soot have been linked to diseases such as age-related macular degeneration and proliferative vitreoretinopathy. We developed a bench-scale system to synthesize different types of soot, that is, soot with a systematically varied physical attributes or chemical composition. We used common analytical techniques to probe such properties, and used statistical analyses to correlate them with toxicity in vitro using ARPE-19 cells. Within the range of flame conditions studied, we find that soot toxicity increases with increasing oxygen concentration in fuel-rich premixed flames, and weakly increases with decreasing flame temperature. Additionally, soot particles produced in premixed flames are generally smaller in size, exhibit a lesser fractal structure, and are considerably more toxic to ARPE-19 cells than soot particles produced in non-premixed flames.

Inhibition of Laminar Premixed Flames of Dimethyl Ether by a Phosphorus-Containing Compound

ABSTRACT The present paper reports experimental and modeling results on the laminar burning velocity and structure of stoichiometric and fuel-rich premixed laminar flames of DME with and without TMP additives. The spatial variations of the mole fractions of H, OH, PO, PO2, HOPO, HOPO2 and some intermediate hydrocarbons in the one-dimensional burner-stabilized flames with various equivalence ratios are measured by the flame-sampling molecular beam mass spectrometry. The novel measurement data for the DME flames are used to validate a kinetic mechanism available in the literature for flame inhibition by organophosphorus compounds. The TMP inhibition effectiveness of DME flames has been determined and revealed to be lower than that of CH4/air flame. The speeds of CH4/air and DME/air flames were found to be sensitive to the same reactions involving phosphorus compounds, while the sensitivity of the methane flame speed to inhibition reactions is higher than that of DME/air flame. The observed differences were explained by the higher concentration of the chain carriers H, OH, and O in the DME flame. Based on the results obtained, we conclude that the phosphorus-containing inhibitors are promising candidates for reducing the flammability and ensuring the fire safety of DME mixtures with air.

Understanding AP/HTPB composite propellant combustion from new perspectives

Combustion of the AP/HTPB composite propellant at the mesoscale is simulated by a partitioned numerical framework, in which the unsteady solid-phase conduction, gas-solid interface regression, and gaseous combustion are sequentially calculated on two sets of overlapped grids. The gas-solid interface is traced by the level-set method. The mass and species exchange conditions at the gas-solid interface are converted into source terms by the immersed-boundary method. Effectiveness of the entire framework is justified by applying the integrated solver to a Miller pack example. The predicted burning rates show good agreement with experimental data over a wide range of pressure conditions, and the gas-phase temperature field clearly depicts the final diffusion flame. The flame zone closely above the regressing interface can be identified by the fluctuation of the projected velocity components perpendicular to the main stream direction. Statistical results conditional on Lagrangian tracing of fluid parcels released from the AP and binder parts show distinction between the oxidizer-rich and fuel-rich flames in terms of the reaction intensity and the flame structure. Statement of SignificanceFrom the algorithm/simulation perspective: a partitioned numerical solution framework is built upon overlapped structured (for the gas phase) and unstructured (for the solid phase) meshes; the level-set approach is used on the unstructured mesh to identify solid-gas interface with complex geometry. From the analysis perspective: the flame front is newly defined in terms of the tangential velocity components; the fuel/oxidizer evolution pattern is analyzed from conditional statistics based on Lagrangian tracing; new insights in heterogeneous combustion include, for instance, effects of pressure on the tangential velocity fluctuation and flame properties conditional on different ingredients.

Resonance enhanced multiphoton ionization detection of aromatics formation in fuel-rich flames

Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are formed in fuel-rich and sooting hydrocarbon flames. These compounds and smaller aromatic flame constituents, such as benzene, toluene and naphthalene can be detected by flame-sampling molecular beam mass spectrometry (MBMS). They are readily ionized by photoionization with UV light, either in resonant or non-resonant ionization processes. The multiphoton ionization of benzene, toluene, and styrene with MBMS detection was investigated as a function of laser power and wavelength and the quantitative relation between ion signal and mole fractions in the flames was established. These measurements were prerequisites for the measurement of quantitative mole fraction profiles of these species in flames of various fuels. In addition, the measurements provide relative mole fraction profiles of various other aromatic flame species. The results are compared to measurements of aromatics in butadiene, propyne, and allene flames by single-photon ionization with vacuum ultraviolet radiation from a synchrotron source and other literature data.

Numerical simulation of microwave-enhanced methane-air flames I: Modeling and one-dimensional premixed laminar flames

This study considers the numerical modeling of sub-breakdown microwave-enhanced combustion in one-dimensional laminar methane-air flames over a range of stoichiometries at standard temperature and pressure. The effect of uniform microwave fields on the laminar flame speed, post-flame temperature and composition is of primary interest here.A model for the non-thermal plasma generated by the microwave field in such flames is constructed based on fitting of electron properties and electron impact reaction rates to pre-computed solutions of the Boltzmann equation, combined with ambipolar diffusion transport for charged species. This model is used with a selection of existing and novel methane-air kinetics schemes to compute laminar flame profiles at a range of microwave field strengths and varying stoichiometry. The trends for laminar flame strength and temperature, peak- and outlet species fractions are compared over this parameter space. While all schemes demonstrate increasing flame speed and temperature with higher field strength and richer flames, significant variations in the form and magnitude of this increase are observed for the various kinetics schemes considered.The laminar flame-speed increase at sub-breakdown electric field strengths is found to be due primarily to electron heating of the gases in both the pre-heat region and across the flame. Analysis of the electron energy transfer shows that the majority of the energy at moderate field strengths is transferred via excitement of vibrational states of nitrogen, followed by water and carbon monoxide. In the pre-heat regime, vibrational excitement of methane is also seen to play an important role for fuel-rich flames. Particular attention is paid to the modification of the flame speed due to the relaxation time of the vibrational N2 states, which is demonstrated to result in a moderate reduction of the flame speed for lean and stoichiometric flames.A driving concern here is the development of models suitable for use within large-scale three-dimensional numerical simulations and the knowledge gained in comparing the existing schemes is used to derive a range of simplified mechanisms more suited for this purpose. The ability of these reduced models to capture the flame enhancement is demonstrated over a range of flame stoichiometries and sub-breakdown field strengths.

Species structures in preheated ammonia micro flames

Species structure of ammonia (NH3) micro flames stabilized on a preheated 2-mm diameter tube is investigated using laser-induced fluorescence (LIF) measurements and numerical simulations with detailed reaction mechanisms. Nitric oxide (NO) and hydroxyl (OH) radicals are measured using single-photon absorption laser-induced fluorescence (LIF), while hydrogen atoms (H) are measured using two-photon absorption LIF (TPLIF). NO and OH are measured using nanosecond excitation pulses while both nanosecond and femtosecond methods are employed for TPLIF of H. 1-D and 2-D flame simulations are performed using Cantera and ANSYS FLUENT, separately, and the results are compared with the experimental data. It was observed that experimental H-atom signals increased with increasing equivalence ratio (ϕ), while the model predicted an opposite trend. Compared to the model predicted a rapid drop of OH as a function of ϕ, experimentally measured OH profiles exhibit opposite trends in different height locations of the flame. It is conjectured that the thermal dissociation of NH3 to generate reactive radicals such as H and OH is enhanced with preheating rich mixtures. Measured NO-LIF signal decreases with increasing ϕ, which agrees with the predicted trend by the simulation. NO reduction in fuel-rich flames is expected to be due to NHi radicals generated from excess NH3. A negative correlation is observed between NO and H/OH as a function of ϕ, which contradicts with the simulation that shows a positive relationship. This discrepancy implies that the effect of NH3 thermal dissociation has to be considered in the simulation of rich NH3 flames. This study helps to fulfill the fundamental knowledge gap of NH3 dissociation kinetics and the role of reactive intermediates in oxidation and NO formation pathways, hence an important step towards realizing practical combustion devices operating of NH3 as an energy carrier.

Experimental investigation of aluminum-air burning velocity at elevated pressure

Aluminum is an energy-dense metal that reacts exothermically with a range of oxidizers, making it a potentially useful fuel for certain thermal energy and power applications (e.g., boilers, swirl-stabilized burners, rockets, etc.). In addition to its reactive properties, aluminum is naturally abundant and commercially available in fine powders that are relatively inexpensive and chemically stable. Fine aluminum dusts, with particle diameters on the order of micrometers, can be aerosolized and mixed with a gaseous oxidizer such as air to create stable dust flames and heat for a thermodynamic cycle. In order to realize the potential utility of aluminum-air dust flames, the fundamental combustion behavior, such as the burning velocity, must be understood. In this work, an experimental system was developed that allows metal dust flames to be observed within an optically-accessible pressurized chamber. Using a high-speed camera, fuel-rich premixed aluminum-air jet flames were imaged through narrowband interference filters, and the data were used to calculate burning velocity. A single polydisperse size distribution of particles was tested at pressures ranging from 1 to 7.2 bar. Burning velocity was found to decrease with increased pressure (P), with an approximate proportionality to P−0.6 over the range of pressures tested (∼P−0.3 for only the laminar flow conditions). This reduction in burning velocity with increased pressure is hypothesized to occur due to increased oxidizer density along with a decrease in interparticle spacing, which may result in asymmetric particle heating and increased competition for oxidizer.

Propylene Oxide Addition Effect on the Chemical Speciation of a Fuel-Rich Premixed n-Heptane/Toluene Flame.

1,2-Propylene oxide (PO, C3H6O) is considered as a promising agent for improving fuel. In this work, the effect of PO additives on the species pool in a premixed burner-stabilized fuel-rich (ϕ = 1.6) flame fueled by n-heptane/toluene mixture (7/3 by volume of liquids) at atmospheric pressure is studied by the flame-sampling molecular beam mass spectrometry and numerical modeling in order to get insight into the chemical aspects of the influence of oxygenates with an epoxy group on the formation of abundant intermediates (including PAH precursors) during combustion of fossil fuels. The flames with various loadings of PO in the fuel blend (from 0 to 16.3% in mole basis) are examined, and detailed kinetic mechanisms available in the literature are validated against the measurements of mole fraction profiles of reactants, major products, and many intermediate species. A higher reactivity of the fresh mixture and a reduction in the peak mole fractions of intermediates playing an important role in PAH formation (benzene, styrene, ethylbenzene, phenol, acetylene, diacetylene, etc.) are observed when PO is added. This was found to be due to simultaneously two factors: the partial replacement of "sooting" fuel (toluene, which is the main precursor of these species) with oxygenated additive, and the changes in the flame radical pool caused by PO addition. Propylene oxide additive was found to change the ratio between H, OH, O, and CH3 toward an increase in the proportion of O and CH3. The detailed kinetic mechanisms considered in the work are found to overpredict the peak mole fraction of acetylene, a key species playing a crucial role in PAH growth. Its chemistry is revisited in order to provide a better prediction of C2H2 and, as a result, PAHs.

Blue, green and yellow carbon dots derived from pyrogenic carbon: Structure and fluorescence behaviour

Fluorescence lifetimes and quantum yields featuring polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and other organics constituting pyrogenic carbon particulate matter (PM) are seldom measured. In this work, PM sampled in a fuel-rich ethylene flame was firstly separated in organic carbon (OC), soluble in dichloromethane, and refractory organic carbon (ROC), soluble in N-methyl pyrrolidinone, and then analyzed by size exclusion chromatography (SEC) coupled with online UV and fluorescence detection, and by offline fluorescence spectroscopy and mass spectrometry. It was found that three classes of differently light emitting carbon dots (CDs) could be bottom-up synthesized in the same flame system by selecting appropriately the residence time. Actually, OC presented blue fluorescence regardless the residence time, whereas ROC sampled at low and high residence time emitted fluorescence in the green (green CDs) and in the yellow (yellow CDs) region, respectively. The SEC molecular weight of all CDs presented similar trimodal distributions, centered around 300, 1000 and 10,000 u. For the first time fluorescence lifetimes and quantum yields of pyrogenic CD fractions were measured as additional parameters useful for discriminating the fluorescent components and inferring their structural properties, with the support of mass spectrometry. The different spectroscopic features of CDs could be associated to different compositional characteristics as the polydispersity of molecular components featuring blue CDs, opposed to the oligomer-like nature of green and yellow CDs. Pyrogenic CDs showed different fluorescence emission ranges, quantum yield and lifetimes, appealing for their possible applications in the fields of imaging, electronics and sensors.

Visible chemiluminescence of ammonia premixed flames and its application for flame diagnostics

We report a spatially resolved spectroscopic study of the visible chemiluminescence emission from different premixed ammonia-air-oxygen flames stabilized on a laminar flat flame burner, with equivalence ratio ranging from 0.7 to 1.35 and an O2/N2 ratio of 0.4. In the reaction zone of the observed flames, the visible emission was recognized to be the chemiluminescence of excited NH2* radicals, while in the post-flame zone, two types of chemiluminescence were observed: NO2* chemiluminescence dominated in the fuel-lean flames and NH2* chemiluminescence dominated in the fuel-rich flames. The high-resolution spectra of the NO2* and NH2* chemiluminescence in the visible region (400-700 nm) were recorded. The intensity of both spectra increased gradually with wavelength. However, the NO2*-chemiluminescence spectrum appeared to be continuous and unstructured, while the NH2*-chemiluminescence spectrum consisted of groups of distinct emission lines. Based on the spectral feature, the ratios of the integrated chemiluminescence intensities over the 598-603 nm wavelength range to the intensities over the 586-592 nm range and 447-453 nm range were used to sense equivalence ratio. In addition, slightly different colors of the fuel-lean and fuel-rich flames were observed, due to the fact that NO2* chemiluminescence had a relatively stronger signal in the blue region than NH2* chemiluminescence. The difference was used to infer flame equivalence ratio using the flame images recorded by a RGB digital camera, where the ratio of the signal from the red channel to the signal from the blue channel was calculated.

Experimental investigations of laminar and turbulent burning velocities of thermally cracked hydrocarbon fuels

A comprehensive understanding of the flame propagation characteristics of thermally cracked fuels is crucial for developing advanced scramjets using regenerative cooling techniques. In the present study, both the laminar and turbulent burning velocities of thermally cracked hydrocarbon fuels at typical pyrolysis temperatures were systematically measured using a newly developed, fan-stirred, constant-volume bomb. The results show that variations in fuel composition have no significant influence on the laminar burning velocities of pyrolysis gases and liquids. In addition, the promotional effects of pyrolysis gas on flame propagation of thermally cracked fuel depend on the gas-production rate and equivalence ratio. The normalized turbulent burning velocities of typical thermally cracked fuels can be well scaled using a power law with regard to the turbulent Reynolds number (ReT, f). The fitting exponents gradually increase with increasing equivalence ratio, indicating a stronger promotional effect by turbulence for fuel-rich flames. For premixed turbulent flames in the wrinkled/corrugated flamelet regimes, turbulence and preferential diffusion simultaneously affect the flame propagation process. The wrinkling effects of turbulence are weakened by thermal-diffusional stability when the combustible mixture has an effective Lewis number (Leeff) greater than one. By contrast, the wrinkling process is promoted by thermal-diffusional instability, and the flame propagation is simultaneously enhanced by turbulence and thermal-diffusional instability. A unified scaling law for normalized turbulent burning velocities of thermally cracked fuels is proposed based on ReT,f Leeff–0.6, which accounts for the impacts of preferential diffusion. The effective Lewis number corrected scaling law can be applied to thermally cracked fuels at different pyrolysis temperatures, with a maximum relative error not exceeding 15%.

Experimental and numerical investigation of the transition from non sooting to sooting premixed n-butane flames, encompassing the nucleation flame conditions

In a small range of rich equivalence ratios, premixed flat flames, so-called nucleation flames, were shown to produce very small-size (2–4 nm) soot particles, which undergo negligible growth with the residence time. In such flames, the contribution of the soot nucleation step with respect to the soot growth process is larger than in standard sooting flames, making nucleation flames ideal target flames to better understand the inception process. In order to scrutinize the transition from non sooting to sooting flames, three premixed atmospheric n-butane/oxygen/nitrogen flames surrounding the nucleation flame conditions were investigated: the flame at ϕ=1.6 is a fuel-rich non-sooting flame, the flame at ϕ=1.75 is a nucleation flame and the flame at ϕ=1.95 is a lightly sooting flame. The soot volume faction (SVF) profiles were previously measured by laser-induced incandescence as well as the soot size distributions. In the present study, mole fractions of stable species up to benzene were measured by gas chromatography while those of naphthalene and pyrene were obtained by jet-cooled laser-induced fluorescence. It is found that acetylene, propyne, benzene, naphthalene and pyrene species show the highest sensitivity with the equivalence ratio, while a two orders of magnitude increase of SVF is observed. The chemical flame structure of these flames was modeled using three kinetic mechanisms of the literature to which a recently developed soot code, based on a sectional approach, was coupled. The chosen model is representative of the current state-of-the-art of models describing all steps of soot formation and growth and fully coupled with the gas phase. The ability of such a model to predict soot volume fraction with reasonable predictions of gas-phase species is validated here based on the new experimental database presented in this work. It also highlights the improvement required on particle inception modeling to correctly predict particle size distributions.

Chemiluminescence diagnosis of oxygen/fuel ratio in fuel-rich jet diffusion flames

Equivalence ratio is one of key parameters associated with various flame characteristics such as flame structure and heat release rate. Chemiluminescence diagnosis of equivalence ratio has received extensive attention but not yet perfected, especially for fuel-rich diffusion flames. In this paper, the feasibility for evaluating molar equivalence ratio of oxygen to fuel in the fuel-rich conditions based on radical chemiluminescence diagnosis was explored. The sensitivity of the spontaneous luminescence intensity to the change of the nominal oxygen/fuel ratio in co-flow CH4-O2 jet diffusion flames was quantitatively studied. In addition, the two-dimensional distributions of the intensity ratios of CH* to CO2* and OH* to CH* were further analyzed, and local oxygen/fuel ratios were reconstructed. The results show that OH* chemiluminescence is more sensitive to changes in nominal oxygen/fuel ratio than CH* and CO2*. The sensitivity of CH* to oxygen/fuel ratio increases with the rise of CH4 flow rate, while the sensitivity of CO2* decreases. The reconstructed value of local oxygen/fuel ratio according to the two-dimensional intensity ratio of CH* to CO2* is underestimated, while based on the intensity ratio of OH* to CH* it is overestimated. Combined with these two intensity ratio distributions, the local oxygen/fuel ratio can be roughly determined.

Numerical modeling for local flame structure and pollutant formation in biodiesel and n-Dodecane spray jet flames

The present work performs unsteady Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes simulation to study the combustion characteristics of soybean methyl esters biodiesel and n-dodecane spray jet flames. To realistically account for the turbulence-chemistry interaction in computationally efficient manner, the Multi-Environment PDF model coupled with unsteady flamelet library are considered in the present work. The present comprehensive spray combustion model is validated against experimental data in terms of liquid and vapor penetration, ignition delay time and lift-off length. It was found that the biodiesel spray flame creates hot reaction zone at the relatively narrow central region with small flame volume. On the other hand, n-dodecane spray flame forms the hot reaction zone at the spreading flame field with large flame volume. These distinctive differences in local flame structures yield different NO distribution of the two spray flames due to its strong dependence on temperature. The biodiesel spray flame produces significantly less C2H2 at the fuel-rich flame zone than the n-dodecane spray flame. The present work clearly shows that the MEPDF model has capability to predict central partially premixed flame of biodiesel, diffusion flame of n-dodecane, and reduction of soot when oxygenate fuel is used in Diesel engine-like conditions.

Unexpected performance of systematically derived one-step chemistry in describing rich hydrogen-air pulsating flames

A one-step reduced chemical-kinetic mechanism describing near-critical hydrogen combustion, recently derived by assuming that all chemical intermediates maintain steady state, is used to investigate numerically the pulsating dynamics of fuel-rich hydrogen-air flames. The computations, considering pressures of up to 20 atmospheres, address the flame evolution for increasing values of the equivalence ratio ϕ, a relevant bifurcation parameter. Besides critical conditions associated with the Hopf bifurcation occurring at a critical value ϕc of ϕ, supercritical dynamics for ϕ>ϕc is investigated, including the nonlinear gradual growth of the oscillation amplitude with increasing ϕ, the occurrence of a period-doubling bifurcation, and the emergence of nonlinear relaxation oscillations. Comparisons with results of numerical calculations employing detailed chemistry reveal that the one-step description is able to predict with unexpectedly good accuracy the flame dynamics, including the critical conditions at the bifurcations as well as the nonlinear dynamics encountered for ϕ>ϕc.

Direct numerical simulation of turbulent premixed ammonia and ammonia-hydrogen combustion under engine-relevant conditions

The combustion characteristics of ammonia and ammonia-hydrogen fuel blends under spark-ignited turbulent premixed engine-relevant conditions were investigated by means of direct numerical simulation and detailed chemistry. Several test cases were investigated for an outwardly expanding turbulent premixed flame configuration covering pure ammonia and ammonia-hydrogen fuel blends with 10% and 15% hydrogen content by volume for different equivalence ratio values of 0.9, 1.0 and 1.1. The results showed that the fuel-lean flames exhibit strong wrinkled structures at flame front compared to stoichiometric and fuel-rich flames. The heat release rate plots indicate that adding hydrogen into ammonia improves the reactivity of the flame and enhances the combustion process. The scatter plots of heat release rate versus local curvature coloured by NO formation, show that high heat release rate values occur in the concave structures and low heat release rate values occur in the convex structure, which is consistent with NO distribution. The highest turbulent burning velocity values were found for the fuel-lean cases due to more wrinkled flame front with lower effective Lewis number compared to fuel-rich cases. The results show a bending effect for the ratio between turbulent to laminar burning velocities with respect to hydrogen addition at all equivalence ratios with 10% hydrogen addition into ammonia exhibiting a highest value for the burning velocity ratio. Two distinct flame structures (concave and convex) were analysed in terms of local equivalence ratio based on the elements of N and O as well as H and O. They revealed an opposite distribution of NO formation normal to the flame front within concave and convex structures. Elementary chemical reactions involved in NO formation have shown that hydrogen addition into ammonia influences the reactivity of certain specific chemical reactions.