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Abstract Studying the lift-off behavior of non-premixed jet flames is important to understanding the flame stabilization mechanisms in practical systems, including gas flares and combustors, and to improving the safety of pressurized fuel tanks in case of fuel leaks. This is typically done with the canonical configuration of an axisymmetric fuel jet issuing into a quiescent or co-flowing oxidizer and abundant data are available in the literature. However, most of these data were collected at normal or sub-atmospheric pressure and little data are available at elevated pressure and high Reynolds numbers, conditions relevant to practical configurations. The present study fills this gap by reporting lift-off height measurements of methane and ethane non-premixed jet flames for pressures up to 7 bar and Re = 57,500 in the presence of an air co-flow. Data are interpreted using Kalghatgi's model for the dimensionless lift-off height, which was previously proven successful for sub-atmospheric to normal pressures, as well as elevated pressure but only for low turbulent Reynolds numbers and propane. In this contribution, Kalghatgi's model has been shown to accurately predict the slope of the lift-off height vs. jet velocity curves at elevated pressure and large Reynolds number for methane and ethane. A new term, a function of the stoichiometric mixture fraction, the laminar burning velocity, and a turbulent Schmidt number, is also introduced to extend the predictive capabilities of Kalghatgi's model to configurations featuring a co-flow. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Pure ammonia-air swirl flames can be stabilized for a wide range of equivalence ratios. • Ammonia addition to methane reduces the flames' propensity to flashback. • Ammonia addition to methane widens the stable range of operation. • Good NO performances are only achieved for slightly-rich equivalence ratios. Ammonia is a promising fuel for heat and power generation because it is carbon-free and it can be produced from abundant chemicals and renewable energy sources. However, ammonia-air mixtures feature a low reactivity and stabilizing turbulent ammonia-air flames is challenging. In this study, the stability limits of technically-premixed ammonia-methane-air mixtures are measured for a wide range of ammonia additions in a laboratory-scale swirl burner. Results are compared to that obtained for baseline methane-air mixtures. Data show that increasing the ammonia addition increases the equivalence ratio at the lean blowout limit but also reduces the flames' propensity to flashback. If the volume fraction of ammonia in the fuel blend exceeds a critical value, experiments also show that increasing the equivalence ratio at a fixed bulk velocity does not yield flashback and rich blow-out occurs instead. This significantly widens the range of equivalence ratios yielding stable flames. The critical ammonia volume fraction is a function of the Reynolds number and is x NH3 = 0.42 for Re = 7000 and x NH3 = 0.70 for Re = 3000. Because the ability to stabilize ammonia-methane-air flames is not practically relevant if NOx emissions are too large compared to that of conventional methane-air flames, exhaust NO concentrations are also measured. Consistent with previous studies, data show that, for non-marginal ammonia fuel fractions, good NO performances are not found for lean ammonia-methane-air mixtures and can only be achieved with slightly rich mixtures, which are within measured stability limits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Piloted turbulent nonpremixed jet flames are studied at high pressure/Re. • Soot inception zone migrates upstream as pressure increases, even for constant U. • Corrugation of OH layer increases as Re increases through density. • Frequency of OH layer separation increases as pressure/Re increase. • OH layer fragments into smaller "islands" as Re increases. A recently commissioned high-pressure combustion duct is used to investigate a family of ten, piloted, sooting, turbulent nonpremixed flames over a range of pressures and Reynolds numbers. For all conditions, the central jet is composed of 35% ethylene and 65% nitrogen by volume. In one series of flames, the Reynolds number is kept constant while the pressure is increased, whereas in the other series, the bulk jet velocity is maintained. The maximum pressure, p , is 5 bar and the maximum Reynolds number, Re, is 50,000. A DSLR camera and 10-kHz OH-PLIF are used to characterized the near field. DSLR camera images show that the length of the blue region immediately downstream of the nozzle decreases as the pressure increases, rapidly in the constant Reynolds number series, and gradually in the constant velocity series. Analysis of OH-PLIF images in the near field show that corrugation of the flame front is fairly insensitive to changes in pressure if the Reynolds number is held constant. As the Reynolds number (and pressure) is increased, the flame front becomes more corrugated and the frequency of OH layer extinction increases. This leads to smaller "islands" of OH that are separated by shorter distances. However, despite increased local extinction, the flames remain attached even as the Reynolds number is increased to more than twice the maximum Reynolds number that is possible at atmospheric pressure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Formic acid (FA) is a potential hydrogen energy carrier and low-carbon fuel by reversing the decomposition products, CO 2 and H 2, back to restore FA without additional carbon release. However, FA-air mixtures feature high ignition energy and low flame speed; hence stabilizing FA-air flames in combustion devices is challenging. This study experimentally investigates the flame stability and emission of swirl flames fueled with pre-vaporized formic acid-methane blends over a wide range of formic acid fuel fractions. Results show that by using a swirl combustor, the premixed formic acid-methane-air flames could be stabilized over a wide range of FA fuel fractions, Reynolds numbers, and swirl numbers. The addition of formic acid increases the equivalence ratios at which the flashback and lean blowout occur. When Reynolds number increases, the equivalence ratio at the flashback limit increases, but that decreases at the lean blowout limit. Increasing the swirl number has a non-monotonic effect on stability limits variation because increasing the swirl number changes the axial velocity on the centerline of the burner throat non-monotonically. In addition, emission characteristics were investigated using a gas analyzer. The CO and NO concentrations were below 20 ppm for all tested conditions, which is comparable to that seen with traditional hydrocarbon fuels, which is in favor of future practical applications with formic acid. • The premixed formic acid-methane-air flames are stabilized for equivalence ratios of 0.5–0.8. • The addition of the formic acid up to mole fraction of 0.6 increases both the flashback and blowout limit. • Increasing the Reynolds number does not affect blow out limits. • The swirl number has a non-monotonous effect on the flashback and lean blowout limits. • The NO and CO emission of the lean formic acid-methane-air flames are low (<20 ppmvd). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Laser-induced incandescence (LII) was used to quantify the soot volume fraction in five piloted turbulent non-premixed C 2 H 4 -N 2 jet flames at elevated pressures. In one series of flames, the bulk jet velocity was held constant as the pressure was increased from 1 bar (Re = 10,000) to 3 bar (Re = 30,000), and then 5 bar (Re = 50,000). In the other series, a Reynolds number of 10,000 was held constant at 1 bar, 3 bar, and 5 bar. LII measurements were calibrated with laminar diffusion flames at each pressure using 2D diffuse line-of-sight attenuation. Mean and RMS soot volume fractions along the flame centerline exhibit Gaussian profiles for all of the flames. The magnitude of soot volume fraction and the spatial soot distribution are enhanced by increases in pressure. In both series of flames, the peak mean soot volume fraction scales with the pressure as p 2.2. In the constant velocity series, the scaling drops to p 1.5 if the volume-integrated mean soot volume fraction on a per fuel mass basis is considered instead. At 3 bar, a threefold increase in Re leads to a decrease in the mean soot volume fraction despite the decrease in soot intermittency. At 5 bar, a fivefold increase in Re results in soot intermittency near zero at the flame's center and a slight increase in the mean soot volume fraction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This work presents the first quantitative Raman measurements of temperature, mass fractions, and mixture fractions in two turbulent ammonia/hydrogen/nitrogen-air diffusion jet flames simulating 14% (CAJF14) and 28% (CAJF28) partial ammonia cracking ratio with Reynolds numbers of 11,200. The precision and accuracy of the system were validated in laminar counterflow and laminar jet flames to ensure data quality. The scalar structure in turbulent flames is examined using conditional mean and rms radial profiles, scatterplots in mixture fraction space, as well as statistics conditioned on mixture fraction and physical spaces. These results are compared with opposed diffusion flow 1D simulation with multi-component transport model and Le=1 transport model to visualize the effects of differential diffusion on the scalar structure at various axial positions. Finally, localized extinction was found in CAJF14 but not for the more stable CAJF28, and the probability of localized extinction was less than 2.5%. The dataset is provided as supplemental material and can be used for the validation of numerical models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]