Combustion Behavior Associated with Alternative Fuels in Lean Premixed, High-swirl Stabilized Distributed Reactions

Download or read book Combustion Behavior Associated with Alternative Fuels in Lean Premixed, High-swirl Stabilized Distributed Reactions written by Amin Akbari and published by . This book was released on 2013 with total page 195 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Lean blowoff, flashback and pollutant emission associated with lean premixed combustion of alternative fuels stabilized by high swirl are evaluated in this work. Alternative fuel compositions include blends of natural gas and hydrogen. Lean blowoff refers to events where the fuel-to-air ratio is not sufficient to sustain the reaction. Blowoff is often a dynamic process consisting of several stages. Correlations based on constant Damköhler (Da) number are able to estimate the impact of fuel composition on lean blowoff for the conditions studied. The accuracy of estimating initiation of blowoff is superior compared to estimation of subsequent stages of blowoff. Flashback refers to propagation of the reaction upstream into the premixing zone. In high swirl combustion applications, the concept of a quench criterion has been proposed for predicting flashback. For the present work, this concept only holds for some measured cases, which indicates multiple flashback modes even in high swirl combustion applications. The other major combustion challenge is pollutant emission. In this study NOx, CO, and N2O levels are experimentally measured. In addition, a chemical reaction network (CRN) was developed to study the details of emission formation. To develop a CRN, details of the reacting flow were needed. Hence, computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations were conducted. To validate CFD simulations, particle image velocimetry (PIV) and OH* chemiluminescence flame front imaging were applied. OH* chemiluminescence was also employed to visualize the flame structure and shape for different fuel compositions. The CRN simulations indicate that the NNH NOx formation pathway dominates the other formation pathways. Thus, conditions that enhance NNH NOx, such as an increase of hydrogen in fuel composition, and decrease of residence time, will result in more total NOx. The CRN also illustrates how the relative contribution of each NOx formation pathway to total NOx changes with adiabatic flame temperature (AFT). The NNH NOx formation pathway is dominant for AFT below 1900K; the Zeldovich mechanism is dominant for AFT above 1900K. In terms of N2O emissions measured and simulated results suggest the levels are negligible even for very low combustion temperatures.