AUTHOR(S):

Valeri Bubnovich, Luis Henriquez-Vargas

TITLE

Analysis of Combustibility Limits for Lean Methane/Air Mixtures in Cylindrical Annular Packed Bed

KEYWORDS

Porous media, gas combustion, combustibility limits

ABSTRACT

A numerical study by means of computational simulations in COMSOL Multiphysics of a lean methane/air mixture in a porous media burner is performed using a novel geometry of a cylindrical annular space for combustion to be developed in. A two-dimensional mathematical model for filtration combustion is used to estimate the lean combustibility limits (LCL), as function of gas inlet velocity and composition and different dimensions of the inner cylinder radius. The porous media used is made up of 5.6 mm diameter alumina balls forming a porosity whose value is about 0.4. The burner outer cylinder is insulated and the inner cylinder considers convective heat losses with heat transfer coefficient values in the range 800 < h < 1500, W/m2. The simulation focuses on the two-dimensional temperature analysis and displacement dynamics of the combustion front inside the reactor, depending on the values of the filtration velocity (0.1 < ug0 < 1.0, m/s) and the fuel equivalence ratio (Φ < 0.5) for two values of the internal cylinder radius, 0.01 and 0.02 m.

Cite this paper

Valeri Bubnovich, Luis Henriquez-Vargas. (2016) Analysis of Combustibility Limits for Lean Methane/Air Mixtures in Cylindrical Annular Packed Bed. International Journal of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics, 1, 38-46