AERONAUTICS

Laminar flame speeds of practical fuels including Jet-A1, diesel, palm methyl esters (PME) and blends of PME with diesel and Jet-A1 fuels are determined using the jet-wall stagnation flame configuration and particle imaging velocimetry (PIV) technique. The PME/Jet-A1 and PME/diesel blends are prepared by mixing 10%, 20% and 50% of PME with Jet-A1 and diesel fuels by volume respectively. The experiments are performed over a range of stoichiometries at elevated temperature of 470 K and atmospheric pressure under premixed conditions. The reference flame speed and imposed strain rates are determined from the two dimensional velocity profiles. Subsequently, laminar flame speeds are derived by extrapolating the reference flame speed back to zero strain rates. Experimental results are compared to experimental and simulation data from the literature for large n-alkanes and practical fuels. The results show that laminar flame speeds of Jet-A1 fuel are similar to those of n-decane and n-dodecane, indicating their potential use as surrogate fuels. Peak laminar flame speeds for diesel/air and PME/air mixtures at 470 K are similar, around 86.7 and 86.5 cm/s at equivalence ratios around 1.10 and 1.14 respectively, and that both mixtures exhibit lower flame speeds compared to n-decane and n-dodecane at fuel-leaner and stoichiometric conditions. Blending PME with Jet-A1 and diesel leads to reduced laminar flame speeds on the lean side but increased on the rich side.

The potential of palm methyl esters (PME) as an alternative fuel for gas turbines is investigated using a swirl burner. The main air flow is preheated to 623 K, and a swirling spray flame is established at atmospheric pressure. The spray combustion characteristics of PME are compared to diesel and Jet-A1 fuel under the same burner power output of 6 kW. Investigation of the fuel atomizing characteristics using phase Doppler anemometry (PDA) shows that most droplets are distributed within the flame reaction zone region. PME droplets exhibit higher Sautermean diameter (SMD) values than baseline fuels, and thus higher droplet penetration length and longer evaporation timescales. The PME swirl flame presents a different visible flame reaction zone while combusting with low luminosity and produces no soot. NOx emissions per unit mass of fuel and per unit energy are reduced by using PME relative to those of conventional fuels.

The effect of acetone on the laminar flame speed of methane/air mixtures is investigated over a range of stoichiometries at atmospheric pressure and room temperature. The liquid acetone is vaporised and seeded into the methane/air mixture at 5%, 9% and 20% of the total fuel by mole. The experiment is performed using the jet-wall stagnation flame configuration and the particle imaging velocimetry (PIV) technique. Laminar flame speeds are derived by extrapolating the reference flame speed back to zero strain rate. Experimental results are compared to numerically calculated values using a base methane chemical kinetic mechanism (GRI-Mech 3.0) extended with acetone oxidation and pyrolysis reactions from the literature. The experimental results show that acetone addition does not affect the laminar flame speed of methane significantly within the range of concentrations considered, with a stronger effect on the rich range than under fuel-lean conditions, and that the peak laminar flame speed of acetone in air is ∼42.5 cm/s at ϕ = 1.2. Simulation results reveal that the most important reactions determining acetone laminar flame speeds are H + O2 → O + OH, OH + CO → H + CO2, HO2 + CH3 → OH + CH3O and H + O2 + H2O → HO2 + H2O. Comparison of the expected disappearance of acetone relative to methane shows that the former is a good fluorescent marker for the latter.