Investigation of effective dimensionless numbers on initiation of instability in combustion of moisty organic dust

In this work, the effect of various effective dimensionless numbers and moisture contents on initiation of instability in combustion of moisty organic dust is calculated. To have reliable model, effect of thermal radiation is taken into account. One- dimensional flame structure is divided into three zones： preheat zone, reaction zone and post-flame zone. To investigate pulsating characteristics of flame, governing equations are rewritten in dimensionless space-time （（, r/, ~） coordinates. By solving these newly achieved governing equations and combining them, which is completely discussed in body of article, a new expression is obtained. By solving this equation, it is possible to predict initiation of instability in organic dust flame. According to the obtained results by increasing Lewis number, threshold of instability happens sooner. On the other hand, pulsating is postponed by increasing Damk6hler number, pyrolysis temperature or moisture content. Also, by considering thermal radiation effect, burning velocity predicted by our model is closer to experimental results.

Structure and stability of non-adiabatic reverse smolder waves

The structure and stability of non-adiabatic reverse smolder waves are investigated numerically. First, the 1D steady-state responses of reverse smolder waves in the presence of convective heat losses are studied with the rate of incoming air flow as the control parameter. Based on the 1D steady solutions, the linear stability and the Lewis number effects on the stability are examined by a numerical normal mode analysis. Finally, the dynamical evolution processes of unstable reverse smolder waves are studied by direct numerical simulations. It is shown that, in comparison with the adiabatic case, the presence of heat losses leads to a backward shift of the extinction limit. For varying Lewis numbers, the extinction limit shifts forward with the increase of the Lewis number while the smolder temperature remains unchanged. Furthermore, results of a linear stability analysis show that the maximum growth rate decreases with the increasing Lewis number, implying that increasing the Lewis number tends to weaken the thermal-diffusive instability of non-adiabatic reverse smolder waves. Direct numerical simulation results show that, on the fuel-rich branch, the unstable plane reverse smolder wave gradually develops to a regular steady fingering pattern, whereas on the fuel-lean branch, similar to the adiabatic case, vigorous fragmentation instability occurs, and is accompanied by a substantial local temperature rise, which may be sufficiently high to trigger the transition to flaming combustion.

Asymptotic analysis of outwardly propagating spherical flames

Asymptotic analysis is conducted for outwardly propagating spherical flames with large activation energy. The spherical flame structure consists of the preheat zone, reaction zone, and equilibrium zone. Analytical solutions are separately obtained in these three zones and then asymp- totically matched. In the asymptotic analysis, we derive a correlation describing the spherical flame temperature and propagation speed changing with the flame radius. This cor- relation is compared with previous results derived in the limit of infinite value of activation energy. Based on this correla- tion, the properties of spherical flame propagation are inves- tigated and the effects of Lewis number on spherical flame propagation speed and extinction stretch rate are assessed. Moreover, the accuracy and performance of different mod- els used in the spherical flame method are examined. It is found that in order to get accurate laminar flame speed and Markstein length, non-linear models should be used.

Ignition and Extinction of Monopropellant Droplet with Lewis Number Different from Unity

E.T.S.I. Aeronauticos, Univ. Ploitecnica de Madrid, Plaza Cardenal Cisneros 3, 28400-Madrid, Espana

Investigation over the recirculation influence on the combustion of micro organic dust particles

This paper investigates the role of recircnlation and non-unity Lewis number on the combustion of organic dust particles. Since recirculation effect is more noticeable in micro-combustors, it is necessary to propose a modeling approach of this phenomenon to better simulate the performance of micro-combustors. In this research, in order to model the combustion of organic dust particles, it is assumed that the dust particles va- porize first to yield a known chemical structure which is oxidized in the gas phase, and the chemical structure of this gaseous fuel is assumed methane. To study the flame structure and solve the governing equations, it is considered that the flame structure consists of three zones titled the preheat-vaporization zone, the narrow reaction zone and finally the post flame zone. The recirculation phenomenon is evaluated by entering the exhausted heat from the post flame zone into the preheat zone. The solution is based on the follow- ing approach. First, the governing equations in each zone are nondimensionalized. Then the needed boundary and matching conditions are applied in each zone. After that, these equations and the required boundary and matching conditions are simultaneously solved with the analytical model. Consequently, the remarkable effects of recirculation and non- unity Lewis number on the combustion characteristics of the organic dust particles such as burning velocity and temperature profiles for different particle radii are obtained. The results show reasonable agreement with published experimental data.

Effects of Lewis and Karlovitz numbers on transport equations for turbulent kinetic energy and enstrophy

A three-dimensional Direct numerical simulation(DNS)with complex chemistry was employed to examine the statistical behavior of turbulent kinetic energy(TKE)and enstrophy transport equations in hydrogen(Lewis number(Le)≈0.4)and dodecane(Le≈4.2)flames.The Karlovitz(Ka)numbers ranged from 4 to 150,involving both the thin and broken reaction zones.Budget analyses of TKE and enstrophy transport equations are performed,and scaling terms in the literature are re-examined.Similar to thin reaction zone flames,viscous dissipation term appears to be the most important term in the TKE balance,while viscous dissipation and vortex-stretching terms are the dominant terms in the enstrophy transport equation at high Ka number.The velocity-pressure gradient and the mean velocity dilatation in the TKE transport equation and the dilatation term in enstrophy budget are found to be affected by the Le.Modified scaling estimations for those terms affected by Le are proposed in this work to account for the Le effects spanning different combustion regimes.This work confirmed that Kolmogorov’s first hypothesis is not valid for low Ka number flames investigated in this study,where the vortex stretching and viscous dissipation terms cannot be scaled with local dissipation and viscosity.At sufficiently high Ka number flames,the vorticity can be scaled with the Kolmogorov time scale,and the mean enstrophy value approaches homogeneous,isotropic,non-reacting turbulence flow,but lower Le fuels require much higher Ka number to achieve that.

MHD flow of a nanofluid in an expanding or contracting porous pipe with chemical reaction and heat sourcelsink

In the present investigation,an analytical analysis has been carried out to study theinfluence of chemical reaction on MHD flow of a nanofluid in an expanding or contractingporous pipe in the presence of heat sourcelsink.The pipe wall expands or contracts uniformlyat a time dependent rate.Similarity transfomations have been invoked to reduce the governingflow equations into coupled nonlinear ordinary differential equations.An analytical approach,namely the homotopy analysis method(HAM)is employed to obtain the analytical solutions ofthe ordinary differential equations.The convergence of the obtained series solutions isanalyzed.The effects of various physical parameters such as wall expansion ratio,Brownianmotion parameter,thermophoresis parameter,Lewis number,chemical reaction parameter andheat sourcelsink parameter on flow variables have been discussed.Further,for the case ofhydrodynamic viscous fluid,we find a good agreement between the HAM solutions andsolutions already reported in the literature.

Asymptotic Analysis of Transport Properties and Burning Velocities for Premixed Hydrocarbon Flames

Based on premixed flame, the theoretical model of transport properties with temperature variation was established inside a preheated zone. Lewis number of the deficient-to- stoichiometric hydrocarbon/air mixture has been theoretically predicted over a wide range of preheated temperature. These predictions are compared with the experimental data on disport properties that exist in the literature. The response of the burning velocity to flame stretch can be parameterized by the laminar flame speed and Markstein length. Therefore, if the laminar flame speed and Markstein number could be accurately simulated by using an analytic expression of characterized temperature, equivalence ratio, and Lewis number, the results are applicable to the prediction of methane, acetylene, ethylene, ethane, and propane flames. Expanding previous studies on the extinction of premixed flames under the influence of stretch and incomplete reaction, the results were further classified and rescaled. Finally, it could be inferred that parameter Pq, the rescaled extinction Karlovitz number could be used to explain the degree or flame quench.

Biomathematical model for gyrotactic free-forced bioconvection with oxygen diffusion in near-wall transport within a porous medium fuel cell

Bioconvection has shown significant promise for environmentally friendly,sustainable“green”fuel cell technologies.The improved design of such systems requires continuous refinements in biomatheatical modeling in conjunction with laboratory and fieldtesting.Motivated by exploring deeper the near-wall transport phenomena involved inbio-inspired fuel cells,in the present paper,we examine analytically and numericallythe combined free-forced convective steady boundary layer flow from a solid verticalflat plate embedded in a Darcian porous medium containing gyrotactic microorganisms.Gyrotaxis is one of the many taxes exhibited in biological microscale transport,andother examples include magneto-taxis,photo-taxis,chemotaxis and geo-taxis (reflecting the response of microorganisms to magnetic field,light,chemical concentration orgravity,respectively). The bioconvection fuel cell also contains difusing oxygen specicswhich mimics the cathodic behavior in a proton exchange membrane(PEM) systei.Thevertical wall is maintained at isosolutal (constant oxygen volume fraction and motilemicroorganism density) and iso-thermal conditions. Wall values of these quantities aresustained at higher values than the ambient temperature and concentration of oxygenand biological microorganism specics.Similarity transformations are applied to renderthe governing partial differential equations for mass,momentum,energy,oxygen speciesand microorganism species density into a system of ordinary differential equations. Theemerging eight order nonlinear coupled,ordinary differential boundary value problemfeatures several important dimensionless control parameters,namely Lewis number(Le),buoyancy ratio paraneter i.e. ratio of oxygen species buoyancy force to thermal buoy-ancy force(Nr), bioconvection Rayleigh number(Rb), bioconvection Lewis number(Lb),bioconvection Peclet number(Pe) and the mixed convection parameter(e) spanning theentire range of free and forced convection. The transformed nonlinear system of equationswith boundary conditions is solved numerically by a finite difference met.hod with centraldifferencing,tridiagonal matrix manipulation and an iterative procedure.Computationsare validated with the symbolic Maple 14.0 software.The influence of buoyancy andbioconvection parameters on the dimensionless temperature,velocity,oxygen concentration and motile microorganism density distribution,Nusselt,Sherwood and gradient ofmotile microorganism density are studied. The work clearly shows the benefit of utilizingbiological organisms in fuel cell design and presents a logical biomathematical modeling framework for simulating such systems.In particular,the deployment of gyrotacticmicroorganisns is shown to stimulate improved transport characteristics in heat andmormentum at the fuel cell wall.