Partially-Premixed Combustion Characteristics and Thermal Performance of Micro Jet Array Burners with Different Nozzle Spacings

In order to develop a burner with uniform temperature field,the combustion characteristics and thermal performance of partially premixed methane/air jet flames were experimentally studied by using micro jet array burners.The circular tubes of 1.0-mm inner diameter and 1.5-mm outer diameter were used as nozzles.The effects of nozzle spacing and equivalence ratio on flame phenomenology,temperature distribution and pollutant emissions were respectively investigated by camera photography,thermocouple measurement and sampling analysis.Results show that there are two clean flame patterns:clean merged-flame and clean non-merging flames.The flame patterns depend on the strength of flame interaction,the equivalence ratio of the mixture and the quantity of air entrainment through the gap between nozzles.The burners with small nozzle spacing such as 2 mm and 2.5 mm tend to produce fully merged flame with low equivalence ratio limit and the corresponding temperature fields are very uniform with fluctuations less than 0.3%,but a small increase in equivalence ratio will lead to rapid deterioration of combustion property.The burner with a medium spacing of 3 mm can produce partially merged flame in a wide equivalence ratio range with low emissions,and the temperature fluctuation can be less than 0.5%(<7 K)in the optimal region.The burner with a large spacing of 4 mm will basically form independent array flames with the largest temperature fluctuation over 1%,while it can achieve clean combustion under high equivalence ratio due to large air entrainment.Comprehensive analysis shows that the micro jet array burner with medium nozzle spacing of 3 mm has the best combustion characteristics and thermal performance.