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Research Article

Effect of Diluent Addition on Combustion Characteristics of Methane/Nitrous Oxide Inverse Tri-Coflow Diffusion Flames

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Pages 1973-1993 | Received 11 May 2020, Accepted 18 Nov 2020, Published online: 14 Dec 2020
 

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this study is to examine the dilution effect on combustion characteristics of methane/nitrous oxide inverse tri-coflow diffusion flame through the addition of various dilution gases. Two diluents, namely carbon dioxide and argon, were used. To scrutinize the overall combustion characteristics, the effects of dilution on flame appearance and pollution emissions were calculated numerically and observed experimentally. In terms of flame appearance, with increasing the central oxidizer flow rate, the flame became an inner-oxidizer-injected flame structure and then converted to a double flame structure. When 40% Ar and 20% CO2 were added to the oxidizer individually, a liftoff edge flame was formed at high central oxidizer flow rate. This theoretical prediction provided a fast and preliminary explanation of the various flame structures and concurred with the trend of IDF formation observed in the experiment. Regarding the flue gas emission, the addition of Ar in CH4/N2O diffusion flame can effectively reduce the yield of CO, whereas the addition of CO2 leads to an increase of CO concentration in the flue gas. Simulation results indicated that for Ar addition, the production of NOx is dominated by the inert effect at dilution levels lower than 40%, whereas the thermal/diffusion effect dominates at dilution levels higher than 40%. CO formation is mainly dominated by the thermal/diffusion effect. In CO2 dilution, NOx formation is dominated by the inert and chemical effects at dilution levels lower than 40%. However, at dilution levels higher than 40%, the chemical effect is more dominant. Thus, CO formation is dominated mainly by the chemical effect.

Acknowledgments

The authors thank the financial support from the Ministry of Science and Technology, Taiwan, under the grant numbers, MOST 108-2628-E-006-008-MY3 and MOST 109-2221-E-006-037-MY3. The authors wish to thank Dr. Guan-Bang Chen for numerical assistance. Computer time and numerical packages provided by the National Center for High-Performance Computing, Taiwan (NCHC Taiwan), are gratefully acknowledged.

Nomenclature

A0,Q,An,Q=

The coefficient of the flame shape general solution

B0,Q,Bn,Q=

The coefficient of the flame shape general solution

C=

Ratio of radius

Cp=

Specific heat capacity

J0,J1=

The Bessel function of the first kind of order 1 and 2

m=

Mass

M=

Molecular weight

N=

Mole

Pe=

Peclet number, Peρurefrs/(λ/Cp)

R=

Velocity ratio, R=Voxidizer/Vfuel=V1/V2

r=

Radial coordinate

rs=

The distance between central axis and outer rim

u=

Axial velocity

Y=

Mass fraction

Y˜=

Dimensionless mass fraction

Greek=
λ=

Thermal diffusivity

υ=

The coefficient of reactant

υ ′′=

The coefficient of product

Ω=

The diluent concentration, Ω=XDiluentXN2O+XDiluentn100%

Φ =

The equivalence ratio

Φlocal=

The local equivalence ratio

Φn=

The eigenvalue of J1Φn=0

η=

Dimensionless axial coordinate

ξ=

Dimensionless radial coordinate

ξf,ηf=

Flame coordinate

Subscript=
i=

The ith ring of multiport burner

j=

Spicies, j=F(fuel) or j=O(oxidizer)

n=

The terms of series

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Ministry of Science and Technology, Taiwan [MOST 108-2628-E-006-008-MY3,MOST 109-2221-E-006-037-MY3].

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