Flame dynamics in a micro-channeled combustor
- Department of Mechanical Engineering, University College London, London (United Kingdom)
- Clean Energy Processes Laboratory, Department of Chemical Engineering, Imperial College London, London (United Kingdom)
The increasing use of Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems (MEMS) has generated a significant interest in combustion-based power generation technologies, as a replacement of traditional electrochemical batteries which are plagued by low energy densities, short operational lives and low power-to-size and power-to-weight ratios. Moreover, the versatility of integrated combustion-based systems provides added scope for combined heat and power generation. This paper describes a study into the dynamics of premixed flames in a micro-channeled combustor. The details of the design and the geometry of the combustor are presented in the work by Kariuki and Balachandran [1]. This work showed that there were different modes of operation (periodic, a-periodic and stable), and that in the periodic mode the flame accelerated towards the injection manifold after entering the channels. The current study investigates these flames further. We will show that the flame enters the channel and propagates towards the injection manifold as a planar flame for a short distance, after which the flame shape and propagation is found to be chaotic in the middle section of the channel. Finally, the flame quenches when it reaches the injector slots. The glow plug position in the exhaust side ignites another flame, and the process repeats. It is found that an increase in air flow rate results in a considerable increase in the length (and associated time) over which the planar flame travels once it has entered a micro-channel, and a significant decrease in the time between its conversion into a chaotic flame and its extinction. It is well known from the literature that inside small channels the flame propagation is strongly influenced by the flow conditions and thermal management. An increase of the combustor block temperature at high flow rates has little effect on the flame lengths and times, whereas at low flow rates the time over which the planar flame front can be observed decreases and the time of existence of the chaotic flame increases. The frequency of re-ignition of successive flames decreases at higher flow rates and increases at higher temperatures. The data and results from this study will not only help the development of new micro-power generation devices, but they will also serve as a validation case for combustion models capable of predicting flame behavior in the presence of strong thermal and flow boundary layers, a situation common to many industrial applications.
- OSTI ID:
- 22390876
- Journal Information:
- AIP Conference Proceedings, Vol. 1642, Issue 1; Conference: ICCMSE-2010: International Conference of Computational Methods in Sciences and Engineering 2010, Kos (Greece), 3-8 Oct 2010; Other Information: (c) 2015 AIP Publishing LLC; Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0094-243X
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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