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Micropower generation and micropropulsion are two emerging fields where micro- and miniature-scale combustors are anticipated to play a significant role. Today, there is a growing interest in combustion-based direct energy conversion modules such as thermoelectric and thermophotovoltaic micropower generators. In this study, the effects of swirl addition to fuel flow and airflow on combustor operational envelope, flame blowout limit, combustion efficiency, exhaust gas temperature, mean outer wall temperature, emitter efficiency, and normalized temperature standard deviation of a miniature-scale (mesoscale) combustor are studied under various equivalence ratios. The findings demonstrate that swirling flows improve the flame blowout limit and operational envelope of the combustor; however, this improvement is more significant for airflow swirl. Besides simultaneous swirling flows of fuel and air result in the highest blowout limit. Additionally, it has been shown that swirl addition improves combustion efficiency and causes a significant amount of heat to be generated, which raises the temperature of the exhaust gas, the mean outer wall temperature, and the emitter efficiency. Furthermore, mean outer wall temperature and emitter efficiency have the highest values for simultaneous swirling flows of fuel and air. It is also observed that increasing the fuel flow swirl number generally lessens the normalized temperature standard deviation (NTSD) and consequently improves the combustor wall temperature uniformity, while for the airflow swirl case, a swirler with 30° vane angle for airstream has a lower NTSD than a 45° vane angle swirler. The results obtained in this study provide useful information for designing a combustion-based direct energy conversion module. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ammonia as a carbon-free fuel has great potentiality to be utilized in power generation sectors such as micro gas turbines (MGT) to mitigate carbon dioxide emission from combustion systems. It is also easy to store and transport at room temperature compared to hydrogen, and in liquid form has equal volumetric energy density to liquid hydrogen. However, some challenges regarding its NOx pollution and flame stabilization inhibit its usage in these areas which requires further studies. In the present study, thermal performance and NOx emission of an MGT combustor fueled with ammonia-natural gas blends has been analyzed numerically through chemical reactant networks (CRN). The combustor's inlet conditions are at atmospheric conditions and diffusion flame is stabilized using air swirler. In the first part of the paper, the CRN model has been developed based on empirical and semi-empirical equations. Series of experiments have been carried out to find the required parameters for the CRN model. Also, the results of NOx emission and temperature distribution have been validated with the experimental results. In the second part, effects of ammonia addition to the natural gas fuel are studied for various ammonia percentages using the CRN. The results show that by increasing ammonia molar percentage in the fuel, NO emission rises dramatically and reaches up to 330 PPM, but after a certain threshold (about 12.5 molar percent of ammonia) further ammonia addition reduces NO emission. Moreover, the overall temperature of the combustor decreases with ammonia addition due to lower LHV (lower heating value) of ammonia relative to natural gas. However, the overall efficiency of the combustor does not change significantly. The results also reveal that most of the NO is produced in the primary and secondary zones of the combustor. NO2 is mostly created in the secondary zone of the combustor and comprises about 10% of total NOx emission. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The combustion characteristics of propane/air bluff-body stabilized swirl diffusion flames within the turbulent regime are studied experimentally to determine the effect of the swirl number on the flame dynamics and pollutant emissions. The investigated burner consists of a central bluff body with an annulus to introduce the tangential and axial air flows. Results show that in low annulus Reynolds numbers (ReS), the temperature distribution is more affected by the overall equivalence ratio (φo), which is calculated based on the flow rates of the air supplies and the fuel jet. However, by increasing ReS, the impact of swirl number becomes more apparent. Analysis of the combustion products demonstrates a reduction in CO concentration with increasing the geometric swirl number which becomes more evident in higher annulus Reynolds numbers. In addition, the trend of NO emission is strongly analogous to the temperature distribution which is an indication of thermal NO formation. Measurements demonstrate that in lower annulus Reynolds numbers, the dominant factor is the overall equivalence ratio, while with increasing the annulus Reynolds number, the swirl number represents more significance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Artificial compressibility method is extended to solve the low Mach variable density Navier–Stokes equations for the simulation of axisymmetric laminar radiative diffusion flames. A combustion model based on the generalized state relationships for species mass fractions and temperature is adopted and the radiation heat loss is estimated as a fraction of heat of combustion. Conventional finite difference method along with a total variation diminishing scheme is used for the spatial discretization on nonuniform half-staggered grid layouts. To reach the steady-state condition, a three-step low-storage explicit Runge–Kutta method is used. The accuracy of the proposed method is reported for confined and unconfined diffusion flames. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, the stability and the light emittance of non-premixed propane-oxygen flames have been experimentally evaluated with respect to swirling oxidizer flow and variations in fuel nozzle diameter. Hence, three types of the vanes with the swirl angles of 30°, 45°, and 60° have been chosen for producing the desired swirling flows. The main aims of this study are to determine the flame behaviour, light emittance, and also considering the effect of variation in fuel nozzle diameter on combustion phenomena such as flame length, flame shape, and soot free length parameter. The investigation into the flame phenomenology was comprised of variations of the oxidizer and fuel flow velocities (respective Reynolds numbers) and the fuel nozzle diameter. The results showed that the swirl effect could change the flame luminosity and this way could reduce or increase the maximum value of the flame light emittance in the combustion zone. Therefore, investigation into the flame light emittance can give a good clue for studying the mixing quality of reactants, the flame phenomenology (blue flame or sooty flame, localized extinction), and the combustion intensity in non-premixed flames. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Chemical kinetics modeling within the numerical simulations of turbulent reactive flows is a critical issue. In this study, first a large eddy simulation of a non-premixed planar methane jet flame with artificial neural network -based chemical kinetics is performed. To consider the effects of turbulence on the evolution of the thermo-chemical state space, the artificial neural network training patterns are obtained by solving the unsteady reaction-diffusion equations of linear eddy mixing sub-grid combustion model. The optimization procedure for selecting the optimum neural network architecture is discussed in detail. A flow field analysis and a comparison between a non-reactive jet with the same velocity boundary conditions with the flame jet are performed. It is shown that the non-reactive jet is more turbulent and vortical structures of the non-reactive jet occur closer to the jet exit compared to the flame jet. Second, in a first attempt to quantify the influence of different chemical kinetics methods, large eddy simulation computations are performed with other methods used to represent the chemical kinetics such as direct integration and look-up table. A comparative study is performed between the averaged, instantaneous and fluctuation profiles of the scalar field and flame structures obtained by each method. Although all large eddy simulation results are very close to each other, the main discrepancy is observed for CO mass fractions obtained by artificial neural network and look-up table-based chemical kinetics simulations. It is also shown that the averaged scalar field and the conditional averaged values of the flame are overestimated by look-up table based chemical kinetics large eddy simulation computations. Moreover, the potential savings of artificial neural network in computational costs in comparison with other chemistry approaches are illustrated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Large eddy simulation (LES) is applied to investigate blended CH 4 –H 2 swirling inverse diffusion flames. In this regard, two different compositions of fuel stream including 30% and 80% molar fraction of hydrogen are utilized. Two distinct swirl numbers of 0.667 and 1.33 are applied to the central air stream. The considered configuration for studying swirling inverse flames is extracted from the well-known DLR (Deutsches Zentrum Luft- und Raumfahrt) burner with modifications to allow investigating inverse flames. The DLR-A benchmark is regarded as a reference to contrast Large Eddy Simulation (LES) and Unsteady Reynolds Averaged Simulation (URAS) predictions. It is found that LES results outperform URAS computations in a sufficiently fine grid. Investigating blended CH 4 /H 2 inverse flames revealed that the jet penetration length is reduced by an augmentation in hydrogen concentration. This is ascribed to the increased mixing with hydrogen enrichment which leads to decreased flame length as well. It is found that with curtailed concentration of hydrogen, the major axis of vortical structures is aligned with the flow direction. In the other words, the eddies are flattened and the lateral size of mixing region is reduced. The consequence is an enhancement in flame length. A noticeable decrease in the mass fraction of carbon monoxide pollutant is observed with hydrogen enrichment. Reduction in inflow carbon atoms and rapid CO oxidation owing to excessive air in the mid- and far-field regions are authorized as the contributing factors. The lowered peak temperature in presence of enhanced hydrogen concentration is attributed to the related reduction in thermal power. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An experimental investigation of the stability limits of biogas in a swirling non-premixed burner has been carried out. A mixture of 60% methane and 40% carbon dioxide was used to reach the typical biogas composition. Vane swirlers with 30°, 45°, and 60° angles were used to make the swirling air. The biogas stability limits and flame behavior under swirling conditions were tested. Besides, effects of air dilution with nitrogen and carbon dioxide on biogas stability limits were investigated. The results show that using swirl can enhance the flame stability limits approximately four or five times comparing to non-swirling air stream. Adding N2/CO2 to the air had negative effects on the flame stability but no changes were observed in the flame structure. The maximum air dilution was also obtained when 27% and 15% N2 was added to the swirling air under strong and weak swirl, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, turbulent non-premixed CH4 +H2 jet flame issuing into a hot and diluted co-flow air is studied numerically. This flame is under condition of the moderate or intense low-oxygen dilution combustion regime and related to published experimental data. The modelling is carried out using the EDC model to describe turbulence-chemistry interaction. The DRM-22 reduced mechanism and the GRI2.11 full mechanism are used to represent the chemical reactions of H2/methane jet flame. The flame structure for various O2 levels and jet Reynolds numbers are investigated. The results show that the flame entrainment increases by a decrease in O2 concentration at air side or jet Reynolds number. Local extinction is seen in the upstream and close to the fuel injection nozzle at the shear layer. It leads to the higher flame entertainment in the moderate or intense low-oxygen dilution regime. The turbulence kinetic energy decay at centre line of jet decreases by an increase in O2 concentration at hot co-flow. Also, increase in jet Reynolds or O2 level increases the mixing rate and rate of reactions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Reduction of air pollutants formation from hydrocarbon combustion process requires improvements in combustion systems. The moderate and intense low oxygen dilution (MILD) combustion technique is an opportunity to achieve such a goal. MILD combustion is a combustion regime which can be attained by high temperature preheating and high level dilution. In this paper, the mechanism of CO and CO2 formation for a CH4/H2 fuel mixture is studied under MILD combustion condition of a jet in hot coflow (JHC) burner. This investigation is done using the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and also zero dimensional well-stirred reactor (WSR) analysis. The RANS equations with modified k–ε equations are solved in an axisymmetric 2D computational domain. The DRM-22 reduced mechanism is considered to represent the chemical reactions. The effects of oxidizer oxygen concentration and fuel hydrogen content are studied on methane oxidation pathways. Results show that the higher hydrocarbon oxidation pathways are effective on CO and CO2 formation under MILD condition. In the methane oxidation mechanism, the ratio between the main route and ethane route is the main reason of CO increment at higher O2 level under MILD condition in JHC laboratory burner. The WSR analysis illustrates that a decrease of O2 concentration in oxidizer does not necessarily lead to lower production of CO and CO2. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: This study has been implemented in two sections. At first, the turbulent jet flame of DLR-B is simulated by combining the k–ε turbulence model and a steady flamelet approach. The DLR-B flame under consideration has been experimentally investigated by Meier et al. who obtained velocity and scalar statistics. The fuel jet composition is 33.2% H2, 22.1% CH4 and 44.7% N2 by volume. The jet exit velocity is 63.2 m/s resulting in a Reynolds number of 22,800. Our focus in the first part is to validate the developed numerical code. Comparison with experiments showed good agreement for temperature and species distribution. At the second part, we exchanged methane with propane in the fuel composition whilst maintaining all other operating conditions unchanged. We investigated the effect of hydrogen concentration on C3H8–H2–N2 mixtures so that propane mole fraction extent is fixed. The hydrogen volume concentration rose from 33.2% up to 73.2%. The achieved consequences revealed that hydrogen addition produces elongated flame with increased levels of radiative heat flux and CO pollutant emission. The latter behavior might be due to quenching of CO oxidation process in the light of excessive cold air downstream of reaction zone. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Large eddy simulations (LES) are employed to investigate the effect of the inlet turbulence intensity on the H2/CH4flame structure in a hot and diluted co-flow stream which emulates the (Moderate or Intense Low-oxygen Dilution) MILD combustion regime. In this regard, three fuel inlet turbulence intensity profiles with the values of 4%, 7% and 10% are superimposed on the annular mixing layer. The effects of these changes on the flame structure under the MILD condition are studied for two oxygen concentrations of 3% and 9% (by mass) in the oxidiser stream and three hot co-flow temperatures 1300, 1500 and 1750 K. The turbulence-chemistry interaction of the numerically unresolved scales is modelled using the (Partially Stirred Reactor) PaSR method, where the full mechanism of GRI-2.11 represents the chemical reactions. The influences of the turbulence intensity on the flame structure under the MILD condition are studied by using the profile of temperature, CO and OH mass fractions in both physical and mixture fraction spaces at two downstream locations. Also, the effects of this parameter are investigated by contours of OH, HCO and CH2O radicals in an area near the nozzle exit zone. Results show that increasing the fuel inlet turbulence intensity has a profound effect on the flame structure particularly at low oxygen mass fraction. This increment weakens the combustion zone and results in a decrease in the peak values of the flame temperature and OH and CO mass fractions. Furthermore, increasing the inlet turbulence intensity decreases the flame thickness, and increases the MILD flame instability and diffusion of un-burnt fuel through the flame front. These effects are reduced by increasing the hot co-flow temperature which reinforces the reaction zone. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Large eddy simulation (LES) method is employed to investigate the effect of the hydrogen content of fuel on the H2/CH4 flame structure under the moderate or intense low-oxygen dilution (MILD) condition. The turbulence–chemistry interaction of the numerically unresolved scales is modelled using the PaSR method, where the full mechanism of GRI-2.11 represents the chemical reactions. The influence of hydrogen concentration on the flame structure is studied using the profiles of temperature, CH2O and OH mass fractions and the diffusion profiles of un-burnt fuel through the flame front. Furthermore, more details are investigated by contours of OH, HCO and CH2O radicals in an area near the nozzle exit zone. Results show that increasing the hydrogen content of fuel reinforces the MILD combustion zone and increases the peak value of the flame temperature and OH mass fraction. This increment also increases the flame thickness and reduces the OH oscillations and diffusion of the un-burnt fuel through the flame front. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

In the present study, propane/oxygen and natural gas/oxygen diffusion flames within laminar regime have been investigated experimentally to determine the effects of oxidant preheating and diluting. This research has been divided into two parts. At first, effect of oxygen dilution with nitrogen and carbon dioxide gases has been investigated. In this section, stability and flame configuration variations are studied. Furthermore, it is inferred that combustion of natural gas and propane with pure oxygen can increase flame stability against increasing the fuel jet velocities through increasing burning velocity of the flame as compared with the combustion of natural gas or propane with normal air. In the other part, oxidant stream preheating up to 480 K and contemporaneous diluting with nitrogen or carbon dioxide are investigated and results are compared with non-preheating tests. Preheating causes more flame stability with respect to dilution process. Also, due to combustion products temperature rise and also reduction in ignition delay time in preheating, these flames are more stable and also visually more luminous in comparison with normal temperature flames. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The stability behavior of a jet diffusion flame developing in a co-flowing stream is studied experimentally, using natural gas and propane as fuel gases. Effects of oxidant and fuel stream velocities and oxidant stream dilution have been studied. The results of experiments showed that with increasing fuel jet Reynolds number, there appears along the flame a point that is accompanied by reaction zone sudden expansion. Flame becomes turbulent downstream from this point. This point is called transition point. More increment of fuel jet Reynolds number moves the transition point to the upstream. Furthermore, two types of stability limits are observed. Blow-off of the rim-stabilized flame is the first stability limit. The second one is the break-off or extinction of the turbulent portion of the flame at the transition point from laminar to turbulent flow. The oxidant and fuel streams are in environmental temperature. In dilution experiments, the oxidant primary stream is oxygen that is diluted with nitrogen or carbon dioxide. In the other experiments oxidant is environmental air. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: In this study, an approach to modification and improvement of CH4/air pre-mixed flame in a micro-stepped tube is numerically studied. The effects of added hydrogen to methane as an additive, entrance mixture velocity and some physical properties such as the micro-stepped tube wall thermal conductivity and the outer wall convective and radiative heat transfer coefficients on temperature distribution and combustion progress in a micro-stepped tube are calculated using a high order, high accuracy 2D numerical laminar steady state code. The results show that adding hydrogen to methane in a micro-stepped tube can play a pivotal role in modification processes of combustion phenomena in a micro combustor. Also, it is found that adding hydrogen to CH4 can assure the flame presence in some certain conditions in comparison to the simple backward facing step method. Moreover, adding hydrogen can improve the concentration of the combustion vital radicals and also temperature distribution along the micro combustor, impressively. In this regard, adding hydrogen to methane as an additive sustains the combustion vital radicals against the variation of the heat transfer conditions in or around a micro-combustor. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

In this paper, the importance of fluctuations in flow field parameters is studied under MILD combustion conditions. In this way, a turbulent non-premixed CH4+H2 jet flame issuing into a hot and deficient co-flow air is modeled using the RANS Axisymmetric equations. The modeling is carried out using the EDC model to describe the turbulence-chemistry interaction. The DRM-22 reduced mechanism and the GRI2.11 full mechanism are used to represent the chemical reactions of H2/methane jet flame. Results illustrate that although the fluctuations in temperature field are small and the reaction zone volume are large in the MILD regime, the fluctuations in temperature and species concentrations are still effective on the flow field. Also, inappropriate dealing with the turbulence effect on chemistry leads to errors in prediction of temperature up to 15% in the present flame. By decreasing of O2 concentration of hot co-flow air, the effect of fluctuations in flow field parameters on flame characteristics are still significant and its effect on species reaction rates does not decrease. On the other hand, although decreasing of jet inlet Reynolds number at constant inlet turbulence intensity addresses to smaller fluctuations in flow filed, it does not lead to lower the effect of turbulence on species distribution and temperature field under MILD combustion conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this paper, the importance of molecular diffusion versus turbulent transport in the moderate or intense low-oxygen dilution (Mild) combustion mode has been numerically studied. The experimental conditions of Dally et al. [Proc. Combust. Inst. 29 (2002) 1147-1154] were used for modelling. The EDC model was used to describe the turbulence-chemistry interaction. The DRM-22 reduced mechanism and the GRI 2.11 full mechanism were used to represent the chemical reactions of an H2/methane jet flame. The importance of molecular diffusion for various O2 levels, jet Reynolds numbers and H2 fuel contents was investigated. Results show that the molecular diffusion in Mild combustion cannot be ignored in comparison with the turbulent transport. Also, the method of inclusion of molecular diffusion in combustion modelling has a considerable effect on the accuracy of numerical modelling of Mild combustion. By decreasing the jet Reynolds number, decreasing the oxygen concentration in the airflow or increasing H2 in the fuel mixture, the influence of molecular diffusion on Mild combustion increases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The effects of the diameter and location of an inserted wire on methane–air flame characteristics in a micro-burner, with a backward-facing step, were investigated numerically. Our goal was to shed light on the parameters that the authors had not already considered in the previous study. To do so, the effects of the studied parameters on the flame location and distribution of temperature, H, and OH species, were scrutinized. It was shown that increasing the inserted wire's diameter and relocating the inserted wire towards the outlet had polynomial and linear effects on the flame location in the burner, respectively. Although changing these two parameters did not have any obvious effects on the maximum temperature of the auxiliary axis in the burner or the external wall, effects on the peak values of the hot-flame critical chemical species of OH and H were recognized. Furthermore, it was shown that the temperature distribution on the outer surface of the burner was more influenced by the wire's axial location in the burner, rather than the wire's diameter. This effect may be of interest for designing micro-TPVs or micro-TEGs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]