Search

Summary: This work presents a detailed investigation on the stability, flame macrostructure and combustion characteristics of oxy‐methane/hydrogen (H2CH4O2CO2) flames in a premixed swirl‐stabilized model gas turbine combustor. The effects of equivalence ratio, inlet Reynolds number and inlet swirl number on stability and combustion characteristics were examined experimentally and numerically. A base operation case was selected as a reference to study the effects of the different parameters with equivalence ratio of 1.0, bulk mean throat velocity of 5.2 m/s, and swirl number of 0.98. Fixed compositions of the oxidizer (30%O2/70%CO2) and fuel (50%H2/50%CH4) streams were considered throughout the study. Large eddy simulation (LES) technique was adopted to compute the premixed turbulent flame regime. Experimentally captured flame images were compared with the flame contours obtained from the numerical simulations, and good conformations were observed. The results showed that near‐stoichiometry flames exhibit strong inner recirculation zone (IRZ) and are stabilized between two shear layers. At lower equivalence ratios, the flames are corner‐stabilized, and the flow is dominated by a single primary eddy in the IRZ. The calculated strain rates predict flame quenching at equivalence ratio of 0.5, which was also confirmed experimentally. It was observed that the effect of Reynolds number on the flame shape is not significant; however, the flow is dominated by larger primary eddy with strong IRZ as the Reynolds number increases. The IRZ also gets stronger with the increase in the flow swirl number. At higher swirl numbers, the flame stabilization occurs at the inner shear layer and the outer recirculation zone (ORZ) diminishes. It was found that the chemical time scale for all cases under investigation is shorter than the Kolmogorov time scale, signifying that the chemical reactions are dominated by the laminar flame speed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Concentric tube heat exchangers are widely used as lube oil coolers in large internal combustion engines. They are particularly preferred because of simple manufacturing, lower area, and better heat transfer characteristics. With the growing use of unconventional fuel-based lubricants, their design is continuously improved to achieve the required heat transfer characteristics. One of the emerging alternative oil is Tire Pyrolysis Oil (TPO) to minimize tire waste and achieve the waste-to-energy objective. The TPO is employed not only as diesel blended fuel but also as a lube oil because of its satisfactory tribological properties. The present work provides a detailed design and analysis of a concentric-tube micro-fin-based lube oil cooler for TPO applications. The design encompasses the thermal, hydraulic, and economic characteristics of the heat exchanger subjected to TPO, Ethylene Glycol (EG), and Crude Oil (CO). To achieve this a robust numerical model is developed and implemented using engineering equation solver software. The model is validated with experimental data first. Then a detailed parametric analysis is done to investigate the heat exchanger performance. It was observed that TPO offered a better heat transfer coefficient along with lesser power input and cost compared to EG and CO. For instance, in the case of a mass flow rate 0.1 kg/s, the heat transfer per unit pressure drop is highest for TPO with 5.86 m/sK followed by CO with 5.12 m/sK and EG with 0.3876 m/sK. Similarly, the annual operational cost is calculated as 27.7 k$, 31.4 k$, and ∼ 80.8 k$ for the TPO, CO, EG which shows the superiority of TPO as lube oil for engine applications. Based on thermal, hydraulic design and economic analysis, it is concluded that tire pyrolysis oil (TPO) is used in the concentric tube micro fin heat exchanger for applications of oil cooling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]