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Effect of Oxygen Enrichment in Propane Laminar Diffusion Flames under Microgravity and Earth Gravity Conditions

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Abstract

Diffusion flames are the most common type of flame which we see in our daily life such as candle flame and match-stick flame. Also, they are the most used flames in practical combustion system such as industrial burner (coal fired, gas fired or oil fired), diesel engines, gas turbines, and solid fuel rockets. In the present study, steady-state global chemistry calculations for 24 different flames were performed using an axisymmetric computational fluid dynamics code (UNICORN). Computation involved simulations of inverse and normal diffusion flames of propane in earth and microgravity condition with varying oxidizer compositions (21, 30, 50, 100 % O2, by mole, in N2). 2 cases were compared with the experimental result for validating the computational model. These flames were stabilized on a 5.5 mm diameter burner with 10 mm of burner length. The effect of oxygen enrichment and variation in gravity (earth gravity and microgravity) on shape and size of diffusion flames, flame temperature, flame velocity have been studied from the computational result obtained. Oxygen enrichment resulted in significant increase in flame temperature for both types of diffusion flames. Also, oxygen enrichment and gravity variation have significant effect on the flame configuration of normal diffusion flames in comparison with inverse diffusion flames. Microgravity normal diffusion flames are spherical in shape and much wider in comparison to earth gravity normal diffusion flames. In inverse diffusion flames, microgravity flames were wider than earth gravity flames. However, microgravity inverse flames were not spherical in shape.

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Abbreviations

1g_NDFxx:

Normal diffusion flames under earth gravity with xx mole % of O2 composition and (100 – xx) mole % of N2

0g_NDFxx:

Normal diffusion flames under microgravity with xx mole % of O2 composition and (100 – xx) mole % of N2

1g_IDFxx:

Inverse diffusion flames under earth gravity with xx mole % of O2 composition and (100 – xx) mole % of N2

0g_IDFxx:

Inverse diffusion flames under microgravity with xx mole % of O2 composition and (100 – xx) mole % of N2

μ :

Dynamic viscosity

D:

Burner inner diameter (mm)

f:

Mixture fraction i.e. fraction of mass contributed by fuel along the centre-line

G:

Acceleration due to gravity on earth’s surface (= 9.8065 m/s 2)

Lf,comp :

Computed flame length

Q:

Heat release rate of the flame for complete combustion using lower heating value of the fuel

R:

Radial distance from the centre-line

T:

Temperature

V:

Axial velocity

V0 :

Jet velocity

Wf,comp :

Computed flame width

Y i :

Species mass fraction

y:

Axial distance from the burner tip along centre-line (R =0)

Z:

Axial Distance along centre-line (R = 0)

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Acknowledgments

We are greatly thankful to V. Katta, Innovative Scientific Solutions, Inc., Dayton, Ohio, USA for developing the computational code (UNICORN).

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  1. The NorthCap University, Gurgaon, Haryana, India

    Pramod Bhatia & Ravinder Singh

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  1. Pramod Bhatia
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  2. Ravinder Singh
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Correspondence to Pramod Bhatia.

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Bhatia, P., Singh, R. Effect of Oxygen Enrichment in Propane Laminar Diffusion Flames under Microgravity and Earth Gravity Conditions. Microgravity Sci. Technol. 29, 177–190 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12217-017-9537-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12217-017-9537-x

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