V. Ratna Kishore

Dynamics of Premixed Hydrogen-Air Flames in Microchannels with a Wall Temperature Gradient

Two-dimensional numerical investigations on flame dynamics in a microchannel have been carried out for premixed hydrogen-air mixtures with detailed chemistry. Detailed studies on the formation of flames with repetitive extinction and ignition (FREI) mode have been carried out for a 0.75-mm diameter tube with fixed conditions of flow velocity of 10 cm/s and Φ = 0.5–1.0 with wall temperature linearly varying from 300 K to 960 K. An unsteady flame propagation behavior similar to FREI has been observed to appear for a range of mixture equivalence ratios and channel diameters. FREI was observed to occur for 0.5 < Ф < 0.8 for 0.75-mm diameter channel and disappears for higher mixture equivalence ratios. The effect of tube diameter has also been analyzed for 10 cm/s inlet velocity of mixture at 300–1050 K wall temperature for diameters of 0.6 mm, 0.75 mm, and 1.0 mm. As the tube diameter increased, the frequency of the FREI process decreased, which hints to the contribution of disappearance of FREI phenomenon.

Enhancement of Heat Transfer with Porous/Solid Insert for Laminar Flow of a Participating Gas in a 3-D Square Duct

In recent years, porous or solid insert has been used in a duct for enhancing heat transfer in high temperature thermal equipment, where both convective and radiative heat transfer play a major role. In the present work, the study of heat transfer enhancement is carried out for flow through a square duct with a porous or a solid insert. Most of the analyses are carried out for a porous insert. The hydrodynamically developing flow field is solved using the Navier–Stokes equation and the Darcy–Brinkman model is considered for solving the flow in the porous region. The radiative heat transfer is included in the analysis by coupling the radiative transfer equation to the energy equation. The fluid considered is CO2 with temperature dependent thermophysical properties. Both the fluid and the porous medium are considered as gray participating medium. The increase in heat transfer is analyzed by comparing the bulk mean temperature, Nusselt number, and radiative heat flux for different porous size and orientation, Reyonlds number, and Darcy number.

Effect of Hydrogen Content and Dilution on Laminar Burning Velocity and Stability Characteristics of Producer Gas-Air Mixtures

Producer gas is one of the promising alternative fuels with typical constituents of H2, CO, CH4, N2, and CO2. The laminar burning velocity of producer gas was computed for a wide range of operating conditions. Flame stability due to preferential diffusional effects was also investigated. Computations were carried out for spherical outwardly propagating flames and planar flames. Different reaction mechanisms were assessed for the prediction of laminar burning velocities of CH4, H2, H2-CO, and CO-CH4 and results showed that the Warnatz reaction mechanism with C1 chemistry was the smallest among the tested mechanisms with reasonably accurate predictions for all fuels at 1 bar, 300 K. To study the effect of variation in the producer gas composition, each of the fuel constituents in ternary CH4-H2-CO mixtures was varied between 0 to 48%, while keeping diluents fixed at 10% CO2 and 42% N2 by volume. Peak burning velocity shifted from to 1.1 as the combined volumetric percentage of hydrogen and CO varied from 48% to 0%. Unstable flames due to preferential diffusion effects were observed for lean mixtures of fuel with high hydrogen content. The present results indicate that H2 has a strong influence on the combustion of producer gas.

Dynamics of premixed methane/air mixtures in a heated microchannel with different wall temperature gradients

The observation of various flame propagation modes for externally heated tubes has led to many fundamental studies aimed at understanding flame propagation in microtubes. During these studies, it has been observed that for moderately low flow velocities, flames with repetitive extinction and ignition (FREI) have been observed to exist in various experimental, theoretical and numerical studies. The formation of these FREI flame modes depends on various parameters such as channel dimensions, wall temperature gradient, flow rates and mixture type. In the present work, an effort has been made to understand the effect of the wall temperature gradient on the FREI phenomenon through a 1 mm diameter circular tube using 2D numerical studies with detailed GRI Mech3.0 for premixed methane/air mixtures. The different wall temperature gradients analyzed are varied from 33.3–1 K mm−1, with an upper range corresponding to experimental conditions. Five different phases of flame propagation have been observed during the FREI flame propagation mode. The entire fuel gets consumed during the cycle and a significant amount of unburned CO remains during the weak reaction phase, towards the extinction of FREI mode. The effect of the wall temperature gradient on the FREI ignition phenomenon has been investigated to understand the development of ignition kernels. It is observed that the ignition happens at the axis and not at the wall of the channel. This happens due to a boundary-layer phenomenon discouraging ignition at the wall. It has been observed that a decrease in the temperature gradient results in movement of the ignition point towards the low-temperature region. The peak CO value increases with a decrease in the wall temperature gradient.

Effects of CO2/N2 dilution on laminar burning velocity of stoichiometric DME-air mixture at elevated temperatures

The laminar burning velocity of CO2/N2 diluted stoichiometric dimethyl ether (DME) air mixtures is determined experimentally at atmospheric pressure and elevated mixture temperatures using a mesoscale high aspect-ratio diverging channel with inlet dimensions of 25mm×2mm. In this method, planar flames at different initial temperatures (Tu) were stabilized inside the channel using an external electric heater. The magnitude of burning velocities was acquired by measuring the flame position and initial temperature. The mass conservation of the mixture entering the inlet and the stationary planar flame front is applied to obtain the laminar burning velocity. Laminar burning velocity at different initial mixture temperatures is plotted with temperature ratio (Tu/Tu,o), where a reference temperature (Tu,o) of 300K is used. Enhancement in the laminar burning velocity is observed with mixture temperature for DME-air mixtures with CO2 and N2 dilutions. A significant decrease in the burning velocity and slight increase in temperature exponent of the stoichiometric DME-air mixture was observed with dilution at same temperatures. The addition of CO2 has profound influence when compared to N2 addition on both burning velocity and temperature exponent.

Modeling of Homogeneous Mixture Formation and Combustion in GDI Engine with Negative Valve Overlap

Mixture homogeneity plays a crucial role in HCCI engine. In the present study, the mixture homogeneity was analysed by three-dimensional engine model. Combustion was studied by zero-dimensional single zone model. The engine parameters studied include speed, injector location, valve lift, and mass of fuel injected. Valve lift and injector location had less impact on mixture formation and combustion phasing compared to other parameters. Engine speed had a noticeable effect on mixture homogeneity and combustion characteristics.

Effect of Axial Pressure and Tool Rotation Speed on Temperature Distribution during Dissimilar Friction Stir Welding

A computational fluid dynamics(CFD) based numerical model is developed to predict the temperature distribution during Friction Stir Welding(FSW) of dissimilar aluminum alloys. The effect of tool rotation speed and axial pressure on heat transfer during FSW has been studied. Numerical results indicate that the maximum temperature in FSW process can be increased with the increase of the axial pressure and tool rotation speed. The influence region of the tool shoulder in the direction of thickness can be increased with the increase in the axial pressure on the shoulder.