Soot formation in premixed C2H4-air flames for pressures up to 100 bar

Behavior of Premixed Sooting Flame in a High-Pressure Burner

The second-order factor effect of burner optical ports and edge inter-matrices (EIM) and the first-order factor of pressure on the soot formation process and behavior of premixed sooting flames in a high-pressure burner are numerically investigated here. Three-dimensional computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations of a premixed flame C2H4/air at p = 1.01 and 10 bar using a one-step chemistry approach are first performed to justify the satisfied predictability of the prospective axisymmetric two-dimensional (2D) and one-dimensional (1D) simulations. The justified 2D simulation approach shows the generation of an axial vorticity around the EIM and axial multi-vorticities due to the high expansion rate of burnt gases at the high pressure of 10 bar. This leads to the development of axial multi-sooting zones, which are manifested experimentally by visible luminous soot streaks, and to the boosting of soot formation conditions of a relatively low-temperature field, <1800 K, and a high mixing rate of gases in combustion around and above the EIM location. Nevertheless, a tolerable effect on the centerline soot volume fraction (fV) profile, fV < 3%, is manifested only at high heights above the burner of the atmospheric sooting flame C2H4/air ϕ = 2.1, and early at the high pressure of 10 bar of this flame, fV < 10%. Enhancing the combustion process reactivity by decreasing the rich equivalence ratio of the fuel/air mixture and/or rising the pressure results in the prior formation of soot precursors, which shifts the sooting zone upstream.

Explosion of gaseous ethylene-air mixtures in closed cylindrical vessels with central ignition

Explosions of gaseous ethylene-air mixtures with various concentrations between 3.0 and 14.0 vol.% and initial pressures between 0.20 and 1.10 bar were experimentally investigated at ambient initial temperature, using several elongated cylindrical vessels with length to diameter ratio between 1.0 and 2.4. The maximum explosion pressures p(max), the explosion times θ(max), the maximum rates of pressure rise, (dp/dt)(max) and the severity factors of centrally ignited explosions K(G) are examined in comparison with similar data obtained in a spherical vessel. The measured deflagration indices are strongly influenced by the length to diameter ratio of the vessels, initial pressure and composition of the flammable mixtures. Even when important heat losses are present, linear correlations p(max)=f(p(0)) and (dp/dt)(max)=f(p(0)) were found for all examined fuel-air mixtures, in all closed vessels. The heat losses appearing in the last stage of explosions occurring in asymmetrical vessels were estimated from the differences between the experimental and adiabatic maximum explosion pressures. These heat losses are higher when the asymmetry ratio L/D is higher and were found to depend linearly on the initial pressure.