Development of a laminar co-ow

burner experiment to study the

combustion of modern automotive
(bio-) fuels at elevated pressures
R.M.G. van der Zanden
Report number WVT 2008.03
Supervisors:
prof. dr. L.P.H. de Goey
dr. ir. C.C.M. Luijten
Msc M.H. de Andrade Oliveira
Master track Sustainable Energy Technology
Eindhoven University of Technology
Department of Mechanical Engineering
Section Combustion Technology
MSc. Thesis, Eindhoven, Januari 2008
Summary
The depletion of fossil fuels and the growing demand for energy, boosts the search for alter-
native energy sources. The use of bio-fuels for energy purposes is one of the alternatives. An
additional advantage is that the combustion of these fuels can be considered environmental
friendly and sustainable, if the supply chain is well managed. In the future, the number of
dierent kinds of (bio-)fuels will increase, since there is a variety of sources available. In order
to do research on the characteristics of the fuels, an experiment is designed which makes it
possible to investigate a laminar co-ow diusion ame in a pressurized environment, using
optical diagnostic measurement techniques.
As a start, the work of a group of scientists have been studied, which has great experience
in using laser diagnostic techniques for investigating a laminar diusion ame using mainly
methane as fuel. In their work they developed a co-ow diusion burner which is used in
their experiments to measure temperatures, soot characteristics and major and minor species.
They compared the data of their experiments with computational models, which show good
agreement. The co-ow burner is therefore considered as a base for the development of the
burner for the experiments with liquid (bio-)fuels.
To determine the amount of liquid fuel necessary to operate the burner, the ame height
model of Burke and Schumann is used. A certain ame height, usually somewhere between 1
and 10 cm, is necessary to perform the optical measurements. With the model of Burke and
Schumann, extended with some additional calculations, it is possible to determine the ame
height as function of the required mass ow of fuel. The model is compared with a model
which uses the same starting point, but uses a dierent solution method. A comparison is
done using a correction factor, which is used in both models. An important parameter in
the models is the temperature. The temperature has a great inuence on the determination
of the diusion coecient and the development of the velocity throughout the region of the
ame which controls diusion.
If the mass ow of the fuel is determined, a evaporator can be selected, to vaporize the liquid
fuels considered for the experiment. A number of criteria has been set up to evaluate three
dierent evaporation devices, for example the quality and controllability of the vapor stream.
The selected devices are: the hot plate evaporator, the controlled evaporator mixer and the
capillary force vaporizer. All the three devices use heat as the main variable for evapora-
tion, since other variables, such as pressure are not ideal, because the whole system will
be pressurized. After the evaluation, the controlled evaporator mixer is chosen as the nal
concept, due to the great quality and controllability of the vapor stream. The evaporator
has one main drawback, it has a temperature limit and is not able to vaporize heavy fuels.
A solution to this problem is introduced, which uses the vapor pressure of the fuel at the
i
limited temperature of the evaporator.
If the fuel is evaporated, it can be burned in a co-ow burner, which is specially designed
to t in a pressure vessel. In this case a cubically shaped pressure vessel is selected to
function as high pressure environment. The vessel has the benet of oering at least four
optical access ports and additional holes to apply other equipment. The co-ow burner has
a exible internal design to experiment with ow straitening material necessary to increase
the ame stability, especially when ames are burned at high pressures. The burner is also
externally heated to avoid condensation of the fuel vapor in the fuel tube at the center of the
burner.
ii
Nomenclature
i molar stoichiometric coecient []
j diusion ux [kg/m
2
s]
k thermal conductivity [W/mK]
p pressure 0.1[MPa] = 1[bar]
r radial distance [m]
t time [s]
v velocity of gas [m/s]
z vertical distance above orice of inner tube [m]
A surface [m
2
]
C concentration of combustible gas [mole/m
3
]
C
1
initial concentration (partial pressure) of combustible gas [mole/m
3
]
C
2
initial concentration (partial pressure) of oxygen [mole/m
3
]
C
0
= C
1
+C
2
/i [mole/m
3
]
D diusion coecient [m
2
/s]
L radius of the inner or fuel tube [m]
M molar mass [kg/mole]
Q heat ow [W]
R radius of the outer tube of the co-ow burner [m]
T temperature [K]
X mole fraction [-]
Y mass fraction [-]
density [kg/m
3
]
mass ow [kg/s]
iii
Contents
1 Introduction 1
1.1 Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.2 Overall research overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.3 Assignment prole . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.4 Report outline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2 Literature review 5
2.1 Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2.2 Experimental setup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
2.3 Diagnostic work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
2.4 Results and recommendations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
3 Modeling ame shape 11
3.1 Simple ame height model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
3.2 Burke-Schumann ame shape model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
3.3 Diusion coecient . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
3.4 Pressure dependence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
3.5 Reviewing the Burke-Schumann solution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
3.6 Results from modeling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
4 Fuel evaporation 26
4.1 Considered fuels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
4.2 Evaporation concepts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
4.2.1 Evaporation principles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
4.2.2 Hot plate evaporator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
4.2.3 Controlled evaporator mixer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
4.2.4 Capillary force vaporizer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
4.3 Evaluation of evaporation concepts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
4.4 Final evaporation concept . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
5 High pressure burner 37
5.1 Pressure vessel design options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
5.2 Burner design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
5.2.1 Co-ow burner evolution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
5.2.2 Component integration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
5.2.3 Strength calculations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
5.2.4 Measures for increasing ame stability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
5.2.5 Heating the burner . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
iv
5.3 Safety issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
6 Conclusions and Recommendations 46
6.1 Conclusions and discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
6.2 Recommendations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
A Bronkhorst product training day notes 53
A.1 Principles of a mass ow controller . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
A.1.1 Liqui-ow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
A.1.2 EL-ow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
A.2 Construction of a mass ow controller . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
A.3 Controlled evaporator mixer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
A.4 Calibration and measurement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
B Matlab scripts 60
B.1 Centerline height of the ame as function of the mass ow . . . . . . . . . . . 60
B.2 Flame height and fuel mole fractions as function of the mass ows . . . . . . 61
B.3 Concentration fuel gas as function of the radius . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
B.4 solvez.m . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
C Drawings of the high pressure burner 67
v
List of Figures
1.1 A future prospective on the share of fuels used in cars [1]. . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.2 An overview of the transition of the simple atmospheric gas burners to the
engine in the real situation, with respect to the possibility the technologies
oer for experimental investigation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2.1 A schematic drawing of the burner [18] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
2.2 Measured (left) and computed (right) temperature proles of a highly diluted
methane ame [9]. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
2.3 Computed (left), LII (middle) and probe (right) soot volume fraction isopleths
of a ethylene ame [8]. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
3.1 A simple layout of the burner with a cylindrically shaped ame . . . . . . . . 11
3.2 A simple layout of the burner . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
3.3 Height of a CH
4
ame with respect to the volume ow of the fuel at atmo-
spheric conditions. The temperature of the ame (T
flame
) is obtained from
the experiment of Den Blanken [28], which is approximately 1000 K . . . . . 21
3.4 Flame shape of a CH
4
ame determined by calculating the concentration
derived by the corrected Burke-Schumann solution, with
f
= 2 mg/s, T
flame
= 1675 K . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
3.5 Flame height lines calculated with respect to the mole fraction hexadecane
(C
16
H
34
) and the gas speed at atmospheric conditions (a) and at elevated
pressure (b) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
3.6 Centerline height of the ame (almost vertical lines) and fuel mole fraction
lines with respect to the mass ows of (C
16
H
34
) and carrier gas (nitrogen
(N
2
)) at atmospheric conditions (T
fuel
= 473 K, T
flame
= 1200 K) . . . . . . 25
4.1 Two sectional views of the hot plate evaporator of Vranos [36, 37]. . . . . . . 29
4.2 The hot plate evaporator design of Preben Stobakk [38]. . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
4.3 A schematic lay out of a Controlled Evaporator Mixer. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
4.4 A schematic lay out of a Capillary Force Vaporizer [40]. . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
4.5 Vapor pressure chart of a range of hydrocarbons [41]. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
4.6 A schematic overview of the experiment using the controlled evaporator mixer.
Explanation of the components: 1: pressure controller to control the accumu-
lator pressure, 2: pressurized fuel accumulator (2l. storage tank), 3: fuel lter,
4: liquid mass ow meter, 5: controlled evaporator mixer, 6: nitrogen gas bot-
tle, 7: nitrogen mass ow controller, 8: air reservoir, 9: air mass ow meter,
10: pressure controller to control total system pressure. . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
5.1 Options for a design of a high pressure vessel, which is able to withstand 3 MPa. 38
vi
5.2 The development of the co-ow burner. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
5.3 The denite pressure burner design. Explanation of the numbers: 1: pressure
vessel, 2: co-ow burner, 3: quartz window, 4: window support ring, 5: inner
chimney, 6: top chimney. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
5.4 Schematic drawing used by calculating material strength. . . . . . . . . . . . 42
5.5 Radius of the outer wall of the pressurized burner as function of its internal
vessel pressure. The inner radius of the outer tube of the co-ow burner is 25
mm. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
5.6 The attachment of the co-ow burner to the pressure vessel: 1: co-ow burner,
2: fuel supply tube, 3: large ow straightener, 4: small ow straightener, 5:
heat insulating ring, 6: burner support ring. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
5.7 Temperature decrease managed by the insulating ring (PTFE) as function of
the thickness of the ring. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
A.1 The outside and inside of a mass ow controller. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
A.2 Measurement principle of a EL-ow mass ow controller. . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
A.3 The elements of a control valve assembly, in conguration applicable to the
CEM-module. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
A.4 The lay-out of the CEM-module. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
vii
Chapter 1
Introduction
1.1 Background
Due to the predicted scarcity of fossil fuels, the increasing environmental burden of consuming
these fuels and the increasing worldwide demand for energy, the need for alternative energy
sources will increase. The protection of the environment plays an increasing role in the human
society and the emission of green house gasses, like the CO
2
emission from the combustion
of fossil fuels, is regarded as the main concern. Furthermore, the search for alternatives
for the depleting fossil fuels is an ongoing process. Within this process, renewable energy
sources are considered as an important alternative. One of the renewable alternatives is
using energy from biomass. Energy from biomass can be called renewable if the supply
chain of the biomass is well managed, which means the carbon cycle has to be closed. The
raw biomass, like wood, crops, seeds or animal waste can be converted into bio-fuels, which
are ready to use in combustion engines. For transportation purposes, bio-fuels like: pure
vegetable oils, bio-diesel, biomass-to-liquid, gas-to-liquid, Dimethyl ether or ethanol, can be
seen as a partial replacement of the fossil fuels in the future, see gure 1.1. Clean and
ecient combustion of fossil fuels is an important issue within the international combustion
engine community, the same holds for the alternative fuels. Clean combustion implies low
emissions of NO
x
, soot, unburned hydrocarbons and carbon monoxide. To accomplish this,
further technological development of combustion systems and the engineering of the fuel are
two important research areas. Engineering the fuel, by better understanding the combustion
process on a molecular scale, will, together with a well developed combustion system, lead
to a clean fuel for better eciency.
1.2 Overall research overview
The research to combustion systems is focused on both simplied burner concepts, e.g. lami-
nar ame burners, and complex practical combustion systems, e.g. optical engines, see gure
1.2. The simple burner concept makes it possible to study in detail the chemical phenom-
ena of complex fuel combustion and to compare the experimental data to numerical data.
However the methods are largely limited to low pressures and fuels with a simple chemi-
cal structure, such as methane. In contrast to the simple concept, the complex combustion
systems research, using real automotive (bio-)fuels and high pressures, are more focused on
acquiring empirical data and most studies limit themselves to a kind of black box approach.
1
Figure 1.1: A future prospective on the share of fuels used in cars [1].
To close the gap between the most simplied and the more complex systems, an idea is pro-
posed to evaluate real automotive (bio-) fuels in a simple burner concept in high pressure
conditions. To accomplish this, a burner concept has to be chosen which is capable to burn
liquid fuels in a high pressure environment and the ame has to be comparable to numerically
computed ame data. To be able to burn liquid fuels, the fuel rst has to evaporate. For this
reason, an evaporator has to be constructed which is able to evaporate all the components
of the automotive (bio-)fuels simutaneously (i.e., preventing preferential evaporation of the
lighter components). After the fuel has evaporated, the fuel has to be burned in a laminar
co-ow burner which would be placed in a high pressure vessel with optical access to study
the ame.
In the experiments, the ame will be investigated by using optical diagnostics. Initially, the
emphasis of the investigation will be on the measurement of soot particles. The formation of
soot is chosen for several reasons. First, soot can directly be measured using laser-diagnostics.
Second, the results of the soot measurements provide an experimental database for the valida-
tion of numerical models of soot formation in both simple gaseous fuels or modern automotive
(bio-)fuels. And last, the possibility to control the fuel input mixture composition will result
in dierent amount of soot emission from the ame. For example, previous measurements
show bio-diesel has a lower soot emission than regular diesel. Besides the measurement of
soot emission, other quantities, like temperatures and mass ow of fuel and air, have to be
measured and the measurement equipment has to be implemented in the experiment.
1.3 Assignment prole
The assignment of this graduation project is to develop an experimental set up to evaporate
liquid automotive fuels and burn them in a co-ow laminar diusion burner under elevated
pressures. The specications of the set up, which is required for the experiments, are:
the system is able to burn a range of liquid fuels with high boiling points,
the system must withstand 3 MPa (30 bar),
2
Figure 1.2: An overview of the transition of the simple atmospheric gas burners to the engine
in the real situation, with respect to the possibility the technologies oer for experimental
investigation.
the set up creates the opportunity to optically investigate the ame in a high pressure
environment.
The assignment can be split in a list of tasks, namely:
rst a literature study on existing laminar diusion burner experiments has to be carried
out,
a relation between fuel mass ow and ame height has to be derived, to determine the
required mass ows,
an evaluation of fuel evaporation concepts and high-pressure cell options is required,
design a fuel evaporation system,
design and construct the burner together with the high-pressure cell.
Additionally, the whole set up can undergo an initial run, to test if the systems are working
properly.
1.4 Report outline
In chapter 2, this report will start with a literature study on the preliminary work of the
scientists Long and Smooke [418]. They, together with other scientists, conducted laser-
3
diagnostic experiments using a laminar co-ow burner which is made commercial available,
to collect data from external experiments. The rough dimensions are going to be used in the
burner for the experiment treated in this report. These dimensions are used in the modeling
of the ame height and shape as function of the mass ow, as described in chapter 3. After
the modeling, in chapter 4, the fuel evaporation concepts are treated and evaluated. The
evaporation concept which is chosen has to supply the fuel vapor to the burner, which burns
the fuel with a co-ow burner in a pressurized environment. The design of this burner is
treated in chapter 5. This report nishes with some conclusions and recommendations.
4
Chapter 2
Literature review
2.1 Background
As already mentioned in the introduction, simple laminar burner concepts allow thorough
investigation of the ame characteristics, theoretically as well as practically. To facilitate
the investigations, scientists all over the world have developed research tools to study ame
structures. Chemical reacting systems can be investigated by computational algorithms and
multidimensional laser imaging techniques [4], which have been developed in the past and are
still in development. Modeling multidimensional ames requires a large number of multidi-
mensional equations that have to be solved for the elementary chemical species. This is one
of the main reasons why there have not been many combined computational/experimental
studies of hydrocarbon ames, while ame modeling might be important for various practical
applications.
The last decades, multidimensional imaging techniques, using optical laser setups, have be-
come increasingly accurate. These techniques, like for example Laser Induced Fluorescence
(LIF) or Rayleigh spectroscopy, have primarily been used to provide qualitative information
of turbulent ames. Since temporally resolved measurements are not necessary for lami-
nar ames, the focus of a measurement can be directed towards quantitative measurements
and increasing the accuracy even more. This creates the opportunity to integrate signals
and compare multiple measurements performed under dierent circumstances. Long and
Smooke, together with other scientists and researchers [418], have studied axisymmetric
laminar diusion ames burning several gaseous fuels using several laser imaging techniques.
Together with the experiments, numerical models are derived and computed. Within the
numerical models the governing conservation equations of mass, momentum, species balance
and energy are solved. This solution is accomplished using detailed transport and nite rate
chemistry sub-models, such as GRI Mech, which is essentially a list of elementary chemical
reactions and reaction rate constants applicable to methane gas ames [4, 6, 19]. These mod-
els are used to predict velocities, species mass fractions and temperature elds up to two
dimensions within a ame of interest.
Another important combustion phenomenon is the formation of soot, due the fact that soot
5
creates air pollution and as a consequence increases health concerns. Soot particles are
formed out of steadily growing polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon structures. Soot formation
is, therefore, also subject for experimental interest and numerical modeling. In modeling, soot
particles are represented by solid carbon spheres and the kinetics are modeled using transport
conservation equations, which include coalescence, surface growth and oxidation [8, 15, 23].
While temperatures, velocities and species mass fractions, measured in experiments and
computed in models, are quantitatively fairly comparable, even in sooty diusion ames,
the comparison between calculated and measured soot proles is still insucient. Therefore,
further investigations, both theoretically and experimentally, are necessary to be able to
predict the level of soot formation of dierent types of fuels. Besides this challenge, the
measurements of other combustion properties, like species mass fractions are also still subject
for improvement, especially in case of non-gaseous fuels, like the automotive (bio-)fuels related
to the experiment treated in this report.
2.2 Experimental setup
To generate axisymmetric laminar diusion ames, Long et al. [418] have developed a burner
which is based on the original burner concept treated in the article of Burke and Schumann [2].
The concept of the burner implies two concentric circular tubes, which make it possible to
create a co-ow of a fuel and an oxidizer stream, as can be seen in gure 2.1. While the fuel
ow is forced through the inner tube, the oxidizer ows through the space between the inner
and the outer tube. In the rst experiments a comparable burner design of Mitchell [3] is
used, which consists of a 12.7 mm diameter internal fuel tube and a 50.8 mm diameter outer
oxidizer tube. This burner was used in an experiment to validate a numerical model which
was able to determine velocities, temperatures and major species concentrations. The mea-
surements were performed using a quartz measurement probe and online mass spectrometry
to measure species mole fractions and uncoated thermocouples to measure temperatures. To
create uniform exit ows, the burner was provided with a perforated solid brass disk, which
served as the burner plate. During the experiment the ame was stabilized using a pyrex
glass cylinder which served as a shield and also dened the boundaries of the system. Mea-
surement resolution was created using an x-y and an x-z positioner.
The same burner conguration was used in preliminary work of Long et al. [418], al-
though they used dierent fuel and oxidizer tube diameters. In some of their investiga-
tions, [8, 10, 1518], the measurements were performed using both the probing technique as
well as laser imaging techniques. This was done to evaluate the dierent techniques and
to compare the experimental data with the theoretical models. Since the last decade, the
dimensions of the burner of Long and Smooke became standardized. The fuel tube was set
to 4 mm inner diameter and the outer oxidizer tube was set to 50 mm inner diameter. This
was done to collect measurement data from dierent experiments using the same burner. For
that purpose, the burner was made commercially available for other parties, which creates
the opportunity to expand the collection of measurement data.
Characteristic measured quantities of ames are generally temperature, species concentration
and soot volume fraction. These quantities are also of interest in the experiments performed
by Long et al. [418] and are measured using probing and laser techniques. The laser tech-
niques comprehend mainly Rayleigh or Raman spectroscopy, Laser Induced Fluorescence
6
Figure 2.1: A schematic drawing of the burner [18]
(LIF) and Laser Induced Incandescence (LII). Typical equipment used in an experiment car-
ried out in the laser laboratorium includes a second or third harmonic Nd-YAG laser, which
pumps a dye laser in case of LIF, line or sheet forming optics, optical lters and an intensied
charge coupled device (ICCD), in case of LIF combined with a spectrograph. The equipment
is mostly aligned to perform two dimensional measurements, which implies a laser sheet has
to be formed, while the signal is detected perpendicular to the formed sheet. This setup ap-
plies, more or less, the same for all the dierent laser imaging techniques mentioned. Typical
equipment used in the probing measurements are thermocouples, especially for measuring
temperatures and thin quartz tubes, combined with an online mass spectrometer, used for
thermophoretic sampling. The fuels used in the experiments are mainly methane and ethy-
lene and are in all cases diluted with nitrogen gas to create fuel mass fractions from 0.3 to 1.
Typically a fuel mass fraction of around 0.5 is used in the majority of the investigations. Air
is commonly chosen as the oxidizer. Both the oxidizer and the fuel gas mixture streams are
kept at an equal uniform velocity, which is 35 cm/s in all the experiments except for [16, 17].
2.3 Diagnostic work
In the last decade, dierent types of experiments have been executed using the burner. Con-
tinuing research interest is the formation of NO
x
due to combustion. Especially short-lived
species like CH and OH are subject for investigation. Therefore, experiments using laser imag-
ing techniques are extremely important to validate numerical models. Long et al. [46, 12]
used LIF to measure NO and chemically exited OH and CH radicals, by illuminating the
ame with a second or third harmonic Nd-YAG pumped dye laser. The measured LIF signals
have to be converted into quantitative concentration measurements made possible through
calibrations and corrections. The somewhat problematic calibration of the LIF signal is done
by Raleigh scattering, using the same optical setup [6,12]. Rayleigh scattering is furthermore
extensively used for temperature measurements, where number densities are measured and
convert into temperatures using the ideal gas law, whereas Stokes-shifted vibrational Raman
7
spectroscopy is focussed on measuring major species, for example N
2
, O
2
, CO
2
, CO, H
2
O and
fuel concentrations, for example treated in [7,9,10,12,13]. To bridge the gap between laminar
and turbulent combustion, the experiments in [7, 13] treat the study of forced time-varying
laminar ames for temperature and species concentrations using the burner combined with
a sound speaker and Rayleigh and Raman spectroscopy. An additional laser technique, Par-
ticle Image Velocimetry (PIV), is used in these experiments to measure the cyclic fuel tube
exit velocities by seeding the fuel with particles. Another, relatively unconventional, laser
diagnostic method is taking the dierence between the polarized and depolarized components
of the Rayleigh signal, or a suitable linear combination, to measure fuel concentrations, as
described in [11]. While the depolarized signal, caused by non isotropic (i.e. spherically sym-
metric) scattering objects, is 100 times smaller than the polarized signal, it is still 10 times
larger than the Raman scattering. This method leads to the increase of the post-processed
signal-to-noise ratio of the eective fuel concentration image, if the depolarization ratio of
the fuel component is suciently dierent from that of the oxidizer. This results in higher
accuracy fuel concentrations if the measurements are performed with diluted fuel, compared
to measurements with Raman spectroscopy [11]. This technique holds also for higher density
fuels, which creates opportunities when diluted and evaporated liquid fuels are considered.
Like stated before, the formation of soot is also an interesting combustion phenomenon and
there are various techniques to measure it. In the articles of Long et al. [810,14,15,18] several
techniques to measure soot distributions are treated. They can simply be divided in probing
and laser techniques, which are both compared with computational models. In the probing
techniques, described in [8,10,14,15] an uncoated thermocouple is used for spatially measuring
temperatures. An additional use of the thermocouple, apart from measuring temperatures, is
measuring soot volume fractions. To be able to measure soot volume fractions, a technique is
developed which uses the error in the temperature measurement due to soot deposition, when
the thermocouple junction is held into the ame [20]. This technique is called thermocouple
particle densitometry (TPD) and has an absolute uncertainty of 50%. This technique is
fairly comparable to thermophoretic sampling, which uses a quartz microprobe and analyses
the samples with an online mass spectrometer and has an absolute uncertainty of 30%. If
a stable and stationary ame is formed, the probing techniques are capable to measure the
soot volume fractions in two dimensions, resulting in 2-D images. These images are compared
with more sophisticated laser imaging techniques. The laser technique treated in [8, 9, 14, 18]
is Laser-induced incandescence (LII). Preliminarily to the LII measurements, Rayleigh and
Raman spectroscopy measurements are performed, to measure, respectively, the temperature,
and fuel and oxygen concentrations of the laminar diusion ame. The LII signal is calibrated
using the probe measurements as in [8] or using an online extinction method, as in [18], which
is an alternative laser technique using the same optical setup as the LII measurement, but is
carried out with a lower laser uence to avoid unwanted LII eects. Furthermore, all images
are corrected for optical throughput, background scattering signals and non-uniformities in
the beam prole.
2.4 Results and recommendations
In all the articles treated in this section [418], the numerical models in the work of Long
and Smooke are compared with experimental data, both qualitatively and quantitatively.
Concerning major and minor species and temperature, the computational models predicted
8
the outcome to within experimental error, over most of the parameter range [6,810,12]. One
of the main problems with respect to these measurements was the uorescence interferences
from species on the fuel rich, or oxygen free, side of the ame front, as experienced in [9].
This problem, however, was investigated in [10], which has resulted in signicantly improved
signal-to-noise ratio of the Rayleigh (temperature) and Raman (species mole fractions) mea-
surements. This was achieved by using a programmable polarizer and taking the dierence
of the detected light intensities under two orthogonal linear polarizations that were parallel
and perpendicular to the linearly polarized laser source [10]. Furthermore, the eects of fuel
dilution with nitrogen has been investigated in [9]. This resulted in a blow-o limit reached
at a fuel mixture of 40% methane and 60% nitrogen. In this condition the ame is highly
lifted, but the computational predictions have a strong deviation compared with the temper-
ature prole measured by Rayleigh scattering, as can be seen in gure 2.2, and needs further
investigation [9].
Figure 2.2: Measured (left) and computed (right) temperature proles of a highly diluted
methane ame [9].
Regarding soot volume fraction measurements, the computational models underestimate peak
values by 20% compared to experimental data [8], which can be considered as fairly good. On
the other hand, the model has some diculty in accurately reproducing the distribution of
soot formed from the centreline to the wing of the ame, as can be seen in gure 2.3. In this
region, the peak soot volume fractions are underestimated by a factor of about three [15].
This underestimation is related to too low predicted temperatures, due to heat radiation
from the base of the ame to the burner exit, which causes low computed values of critical
soot growth species, such as acetylene and benzene. In the study of [8], the formation of
benzene as a limit to the soot interception process was conrmed. If the simulation of heat
radiation in the computational model is discarded, the predicted peak soot volume fractions
increase by a factor of three [15]. This heat problem is further investigated in [18], where they
increased the peak centreline to wing temperatures and produced better results in terms of
higher peak volume fractions. It was also shown that the soot particle sizes vary signicantly
with the location in the ame [15]. The particle diameter grows much more slowly along the
9
centreline of the ame than in the wings.
Figure 2.3: Computed (left), LII (middle) and probe (right) soot volume fraction isopleths
of a ethylene ame [8].
10
Chapter 3
Modeling ame shape
3.1 Simple ame height model
Figure 3.1: A simple layout of the burner with a cylindrically shaped ame
In optical diagnostics, studying ames, the surface of the ame perpendicular to the ame
axis is a relevant issue, especially if spatially resolved measurements are considered. In case
of diusion ames, the shape roughly depends on the fuel supply tube diameter and the mass
ow of the fuel. With a xed burner geometry, the height of the ame can be adjusted by
adjusting the fuel mass ow. Typical ame heights in experiments are in the range of 10
to 100 mm [418]. In order to determine the ame height as function of the fuel gas ow
of several hydrocarbon fuels a relation between these parameters has to be derived. For an
initial approach Ficks rst law of diusion is used. In this approach, the ame is assumed
to have a cylindrical shape, of which the height is equal to the height of the ame at the
centerline of the burner. According to Ficks law, the mass ux of a diusing species can be
written in cylindrical coordinates as follows:
11
j = D
dY
dr
. (3.1)
The parameter D represents the coecient of diusion, the density and Y the mass fraction.
In this case the diusion ux has the unit kg/m
2
s. A rst approximation is that in the center
of the cylinder (r = 0): the fuel mass fraction, Y
f
, equals 1 and at the edge of the cylinder
(r = L), Y
f
equals 0. In that case it can be stated that dY = 1 over a distance L, this implies
that equation (3.1) becomes:
j
D
L
. (3.2)
Using the principle of conservation of mass, the mass ow of fuel (
m
) can be written as:

m
= 2Lhj = 2hD = L
2
v
u
, (3.3)
where h represents the height of the cylindrically shaped ame, L the radius of the fuel supply
tube and v
u
the fuel gas velocity. This results in an expression of the ame height:
h
L
2
v
u
2D
. (3.4)
The same solution is found if nitrogen is introduced as an inert gas to dilute the fuel stream
(Y
N
2
= 1 Y
f
, with Y
f
< 1):
L
2
v
u
Y
f
2hDY
f
h
L
2
v
u
2D
. (3.5)
This simple solution, derived from Ficks rst law of diusion, assumes a cylindrical shape.
Discarding this suggested shape presumably will lead to a more accurate solution. This is
done using a model proposed by Burke and Schumann, which will be treated in the next
section.
3.2 Burke-Schumann ame shape model
Burke and Schumann [2] dened diusion ames as ames in which the fuel gas and the air
meet coincident, with the occurrence of combustion. A typical burner of diusion ames is
called a laminar co-ow burner and exists of two vertical concentric tubes, of which the center
tube is used to supply the fuel gas, while the outer tube functions as oxidizer supply. If the
ame is ignited at the end of center tube and the velocity of both gases are the same and
kept constant, it will produce a steady ame of denite shape. In order to mathematically
dene the shape, so the height of the ame as function of its radius, certain fundamental
assumptions must be made. These assumptions are:
1. the mass-averaged velocity of the gas and air parallel to the ame axis is constant, i.e.
v = constant,
2. the coecient of diusion is constant throughout the regions of the ame which control
diusion, i.e. D = constant,
3. the diusion is wholly radial, i.e. axial diusion may be neglected,
4. admixture of the two gas streams occurs by diusion only.
12
Figure 3.2: A simple layout of the burner
Assumptions 1 and 2 are debatable, but for simplication they are considered to be legiti-
mate, while the third assumption will be valid only for fairly tall ames, but the mathematical
treatment of short ames remains essentially the same. If tall ames are considered, the thick-
ness of the ame front, in most cases, is so small that it may be treated as a geometrical
surface. This surface is created by the diusion of the fuel gas outwards and the oxygen
inwards regarding stoichiometric combustion. The oxygen combines with the gas to form a
neutral product. The equations of diusion of these gases are a part of the mathematical
analysis. To determine the ame front, the oxygen is regarded as a negative fuel gas. This
implies, positive gas, referring to the fuel gas, diuses into negative gas and the ame front
will be determined by the surface where the concentration of the fuel gas is zero. Thus, the
mathematical problem is reduced to the diusion of one single gas having a certain initial
distribution and subjected to certain boundary conditions.
As a start, the non-steady species continuity equation is rewritten. A general form of this
conservation equation for species A is:

A
Y
A
t
+

(vY
A
) =

(D

Y
A
)
A
(3.6)
where
A
represents the rate of consumption of mass of species A. Regarding axi-symmetric
conditions, this equation can be written in cylindrical coordinates, neglecting axial diusion
as stated in assumption 3:
13

Y
A
t
=
D
r

r
_
r
Y
A
r
_

_
1
r
(rv
r
Y
A
)
r
+
(v
z
Y
A
)
z
_

A
(3.7)
Using the overall continuity equation:
1
r
(rv
r
)
r
+
(v
z
)
z
= 0 (3.8)
and considering a steady state condition, equation (3.7) can be written as:
v
z
Y
A
z
=
D
r

r
_
r
Y
A
r
_
v
r
Y
A
r

A
(3.9)
The velocities of the gasses in radial direction are assumed to be very small (v
r
v
z
). As
a result the term containing v
r
can be neglected. In their work, Burke and Schumann intro-
duced the variable C, which represents the concentration of fuel gas at any point, considering
the oxidizer as a negative fuel gas. This concentration can be written as: C
A
= Y
A
/M
A
,
with species A representing the fuel gas. Since there is no consumption of gas, or species A,

A
can be neglected. This information, together with equation (3.9) leads to the following
equation of diusion, also described in the work of Burke Schumann [2]:
C
z
=
D
v
z
_

2
C
r
2
+
1
r
C
r
_
. (3.10)
The solution of equation (3.10) can be derived using the method of separation of variables:
C(r, z) = R(r)Z(z) (3.11)
and making the following substitutions:
C
z
= R(r)Z

(z), (3.12)

2
C
r
2
= R

(r)Z(z) and (3.13)

C
r
= R

(r)Z(z). (3.14)
Inserting the equations (3.12), (3.13) and (3.14) into, (3.10) leads to:
RZ

=
D
v
z
_
R

Z +
1
r
R

Z
_
. (3.15)
Rewriting this equation and introducing the symbol , results in:
Z

Z
=
D
v
z
_
R

+
1
r
R

R
_
= . (3.16)
By splitting equation (3.16), two solvable dierential equations are created:
Z

= Z and (3.17)
R

+
1
r
R

=
v
z
D
R. (3.18)
14
The general solution of equation (3.17) and (3.18) can be derived as, respectively:
Z = E
1
exp(z) and (3.19)
R = E
2
J
0
_
_
v
z
D
r
_
+E
3
Y
0
_
_
v
z
D
r
_
. (3.20)
E
1
, E
2
and E
3
are constants. The expressions J
0
and Y
0
are the Bessel functions of the rst
and the second kind respectively. For Y
0
counts: if r0 the solution becomes: R(r)
and is inconsistent. Consequently, Y
0
is discarded. Using equation (3.11), the solution for
the gas concentration becomes:
C(r, z) = R(r)Z(z) = EJ
0
(r) exp
_

D
2
z
v
z
_
, with: =
_
v
z
D
. (3.21)
The boundary conditions are:
C
r
= 0, when: r = 0 and r = R. (3.22)
When one of the boundary conditions is merged into the solution, the following expression
can be used to determine :
J
1
(R) = 0. (3.23)
This expression has an innite number of positive roots such that:
R =
n
, with: n = 1, 2, 3, . . . (3.24)
Therefore, for each root
n
, a corresponding value of
n
can be obtained, so:

n
=

n
R
. (3.25)
The new solution becomes a linear combination of all possible solutions:
C(r, z) =

n=1
E
n
J
0
(
n
r) exp
_

D
2
n
z
v
z
_
. (3.26)
Since the burner consists of a fuel gas and the oxygen is regarded as negative fuel gas, a
concentration C
2
of oxygen will be equivalent to C
2
/i fuel gas, where i represents the
molar stoichiometric coecient. The following initial conditions can be used to determine
the constant E
n
:
C(r, 0) =
_
C
1
from r = 0 to r = L;

C
2
i
from r = L to r = R.
(3.27)
The initial condition over the whole domain [0, R] is multiplied by rJ
0
(
m
r):

n=1
E
n
rJ
0
(
n
r)J
0
(
m
r) = rJ
0
(
m
r)C(r, 0) (3.28)
and integrated over this domain:
15

n=1
E
n
_
R
0
rJ
0
(
n
r)J
0
(
m
r)dr =
_
R
0
rJ
0
(
m
r)C(r, 0)dr (3.29)
The last equation is written as:

n=1
E
n
I
mn
=
_
R
0
rJ
0
(
m
r)C(r, 0)dr (3.30)
Equation (3.23) shows that the expression
n
R gives the zero solutions of the Bessel function
J
1
, but this orthogonality is not applicable to the Bessel function J
0
. This requires to rewrite
the Bessel function J
0
to J
1
to use the orthogonal property of J
1
and solve equation (3.29):
I
mn
=
_
R
0
rJ
0
(
n
r)J
0
(
m
r)dr =
1

2
n
_

n
R
0
(
n
r)J
0
(
n
r)J
0
(
m
r)d(
n
r) (3.31)
Using the substitutions x =
n
r,
n
=
n
R and the property of the Bessel function xJ
0
(x) =
[xJ
1
(x)]

to simplify the derivation:

1

2
n
_

n
0
xJ
0
(x)J
0
_

n
x
_
d(x) =
1

2
n
_

n
0
[xJ
1
(x)]

J
0
_

n
x
_
d(x) (3.32)
Partial integration can be used to solve equation (3.32):
1

2
n
_

n
0
J
0
_

n
x
_
d(xJ
1
(x)) =
1

2
n
_
xJ
0
_

n
x
_
J
1
(x)
_

n
0

2
n
_

n
0
xJ
1
(x)d(J
0
(

n
x))
(3.33)
Using the property of the Bessel function [J
0
(x)]

= J
1
(x), a rst solution of the integration
can be derived:
I
mn
=
1

2
n
_
(
n
)J
0
_

n
_
J
1
(
n
)
_
+
1

2
n
_

n
0
xJ
1
(x)J
1
_

n
x
_

m

n
dx (3.34)
Using another property of the Bessel function
_
J
1
(x)dx = J
0
(x) and the substitutions:
x =
n
r,
n
=
n
R and J
1
(
n
) = 0, this solution becomes:
I
mn
=

m

n
_
R
0
rJ
1
(
n
r)J
1
(
m
r)dr =

m

mn
1
2
R
2
(J
0
(
n
R))
2
(3.35)
Where
mn
represents the Kronecker delta, which is dened as:

mn
=
_
1 if m = n;
0 if m = n.
Equation (3.30) can now be written as:
E
n
1
2
R
2
J
2
0
(
n
R) =
_
R
0
rJ
0
(
n
r)C(r, 0)dr =
n
(3.36)
To be able to extract the constant E
n
, the integral of the last expression have to be solved.
This is done by using the initial conditions of equation (3.27):
16

n
=
_
R
0
rJ
0
(
n
r)C(r, 0)dr = C
1
_
L
0
rJ
0
(
n
r)dr
C
2
i
_
R
L
rJ
0
(
n
r)dr (3.37)
To simplify the derivation, again the substitution x =
n
r is made:

n
=
C
1

2
n
_

n
L
0
xJ
0
(x)dx
C
2

2
n
i
_

n
R

n
L
xJ
0
(x)dx (3.38)
The solution of the integral is:
C
1

2
n
[xJ
1
(x)|

n
L
0

C
2

2
n
i
[xJ
1
(x)|

n
R

n
L
=
C
1

2
n
[
n
LJ
1
(
n
L)]
C
2

2
n
i
[
n
LJ
1
(
n
L)] (3.39)
keeping in mind J
1
(
n
R) = 0. Rewriting the expression results in:

n
=
1

n
_
C
1
+
C
2
i
_
LJ
1
(
n
L)
C
0
L

n
J
1
(
n
L) (3.40)
introducing the term C
0
= C
1
+
C
2
i
. If this solution is now inserted into equation (3.36), the
constant E
n
can be derived:
E
n
1
2
R
2
J
2
0
(
n
R) =
LC
0

n
J
1
(
n
L) (3.41)
which gives:
E
n
=
2LC
0
R
2
J
1
(
n
L)

n
(J
0
(
n
R))
2
(3.42)
Next, the solution of equation (3.26) can be rewritten as:
C(r, z) =
2LC
0
R
2

n=1
1

n
J
1
(
n
L)J
0
(
n
r)
(J
0
(
n
R))
2
exp
_

D
2
n
z
v
z
_
(3.43)
Since the the concentration C is considered as the fuel gas, which is consumed till C becomes
0, and conservation of mass is respected, the solution should be corrected for the concentration
at a far distance above the burner exit. This is done by looking at the situation when the
fuel and oxidizer are initially mixed over the whole of the burner width. This concentration,
(C

), is a homogeneous mixture of the fuel and oxidizer concentrations, so that:

R
2
C

= L
2
C
1
(R
2
L
2
)
C
2
i
. (3.44)
If this expression is rewritten, using C
0
= C
1
+ C
2
/i and added to the solution of equation
(3.43), the nal solution becomes:
C(r, z) = C
0
L
2
R
2

C
2
i
+
2LC
0
R
2

n=1
1

n
J
1
(
n
L)J
0
(
n
r)
(J
0
(
n
R))
2
exp
_

D
2
n
z
v
z
_
. (3.45)
This expression is used in the calculations of the ame height (z) as function of the gas velocity
(v
z
), and fuel and oxidizer concentrations (C
1
and C
2
). The next step is the calculation of
the diusion coecient, this is treated in the next section.
17
3.3 Diusion coecient
In the rst section of this chapter, Ficks law is used to derive the ame height. This law is
based on mass transport caused by concentration gradients and states that the mass ux j is
proportional to the concentration gradient. The coecient of proportionality is the diusion
coecient D. The diusion coecient can be estimated using an intermolecular model of
rigid spheres, representing the molecules of the uid. If two uids are considered, the binary
diusion coecient D
AB
can be calculated for a mixing process of a compound A into a
compound B using the equation of Chapman and Enskog [21, 22]:
D
AB
=
0.00266T
3/2
pM
1/2
AB

2
AB
, (3.46)
where p is the ambient pressure in [bar], T is the absolute temperature of the environment in
[K],
AB
is the characteristic length in [

A] and M
AB
represents the average molecular weight,
or the reduced mass, of the uids in [g/mole]. The latter can be derived from:
M
AB
= 2
_
1
M
A
+
1
M
B
_
1
, (3.47)
where M
A
and M
B
are the molar mass of the uids A and B, respectively. Since, in practice,
the molecules are not perfect rigid spheres, the model has to be corrected for this imperfection.
This correction is done via a factor called the reduced collision integral
D
, which corrects
equation (3.46), which can now be written as:
D
AB
=
0.00266T
3/2
pM
1/2
AB

2
AB

D
. (3.48)
To make it more convenient to calculate the binary diusion coecient without the knowledge
of molecular physics, like the characteristic length and the collision integral, equation (3.48)
is adapted as described in Poling et. al. [21, 22]:
D
AB
=
0.00143T
1.75
pM
1/2
AB
_
(

)
1/3
A
+ (

)
1/3
B
_
2
. (3.49)
Where (

)
A
and (

)
B
represent the molecular properties of uids A and B respectively.
The values of

can be obtained by literature [21, 22], for example for nitrogen: (

)
N
2
=
18.5 or for air: (

)
Air
= 19.7. In case of hydrocarbon or oxygenated hydrocarbon fuels a
formula can be used to derive the fuel property (

)
f
, depending on the number of C-, H-
and O-atoms in the fuel:
(

)
f
= 15.9[n
C
] + 2.31[n
H
] + 6.11[n
O
]. (3.50)
3.4 Pressure dependence
The velocities and the concentration of the vaporized fuel/nitrogen mixture and oxidizer,
together with the diusion coecient are dependent on pressure. As shown in the previous
section the diusion coecient is inversely proportional to the pressure, see equation 3.49.
If a constant mass ow is considered and the law of conservation of mass and the ideal gas
18
law are used, the velocity of the gas mixture can be written as a function of the mass ow
and pressure:
v =

m
R
0
T
pA

M
. (3.51)
Where
m
is the mass ow of fuel gas, R
0
is the ideal gas constant (8.314 [J/K mole]),

M
is the mean molar mass of the gas mixture and A is the surface of the fuel tube aperture.
In this case, both the diusion coecient and the gas velocity are inversely proportional to
the pressure. In the solution of the Burke and Schumann model, the diusion coecient
is divided by the velocity, which, as a consequence, cancels out the pressure dependence of
both quantities in the calculation of the ame height, provided that
m
is constant. This
means, the concentrations are the only quantity left which is directly dependent on pressure.
In the article of Burke and Schumann [2], they state that the initial concentrations are equal
to the partial pressure of the fuel in the fuel/nitrogen mixture. However, if the pressure is
increased, the concentration is directly proportional to the pressure. If the partial pressure
of the fuel (f) in an ideal gas mixture can be expressed as:
p
f
= pX
f
, (3.52)
the concentration vaporized fuel in the fuel/nitrogen mixture is:
C
1
=
pX
f
R
0
T
=
M
N
2

f
p
(M
N
2

f
+M
f

N
2
) R
0
T
, (3.53)
where the pressure is expressed in bar. As can be seen in (3.53), the concentration can be
determined by adjusting the fuel and nitrogen mass ows (
f
,
N
2
), at a xed pressure.
However, the mole fraction of the fuel (X
f
) has an upper limit which depends on the tem-
perature, due to the ability of the vaporizer to vaporize the fuel. More on this in the section
of fuel evaporation.
The same holds for the oxidizer stream. The oxygen concentration in the oxidizer ow (for
example air) is also dependent on the pressure and can be expressed as:
C
2
=
pX
O
2
R
0
T
, (3.54)
where X
O
2
is the mole fraction or volume fraction of the oxygen in the oxidizer stream.
3.5 Reviewing the Burke-Schumann solution
Since there are several assumptions made to nd the solution of Burke and Schumann, treated
in section 3.2, it is wise to review the validity of these assumptions, starting with the four
assumptions stated at the beginning. The mass-averaged velocities of the gases and their
direction parallel to the ame axis are not constant. Due to the heat release from the ame,
the density of the isobaric stream will decrease, which will increase the velocity according
to v = constant [24]. Furthermore, the initial velocity prole is not uniform in practice,
because the velocity must approach zero at the walls. However, if experimental precautions
are made to enhance the ow, by using ow straightening elements, this imperfection can be
minimized. Similar to the velocity disturbances, the diusion coecient is also subject to the
varying and uncertain temperatures within the regions of the ame which control diusion,
particularly if the values of D for the fuel and oxidizer dier considerably [24]. Neglecting
19
the axial diusion is also assumed and is acceptable when the ame height is several times
larger than the fuel tube diameter. However, for analytically determining the ame height,
these assumptions are justied by the analytical simplications they produce.
Another assumption is made regarding the velocities of the gases in the radial direction. They
are assumed to be very small with respect to the axial velocity (v
r
v
z
), which cancels out
the term in equation 3.9 containing v
r
. However, this approach is invalid, due to the large
contribution of mass transfer in the radial direction. Consequently, the term containing v
r
is
not equal to zero, so:
v
r
Y
A
r
= 0. (3.55)
To correct this error, Roper [25] proposed a method using the continuity equation, like in
equation 3.8, together with the ideal gas law, which states = p

M/R
0
T, where the pressure
is assumed constant and the temperature depends on the height. Combining those two
expressions, result in the following expression:
v
r
= T
(v
z
/T)
z
, (3.56)
In his papers [25,26], Roper uses a dierent approach to the solution of the partial dierential
equation of 3.10. This solution method is previously derived by Hottel and Hawthorne [27]
and is regarding the ame height at the centerline of the ame. Applying the condition,
of only regarding centerline ame height, to the partial dierential equation, the solution,
according to [25] and [27] becomes:
C(z) = 1 exp(1/4), (3.57)
The factor is expressed dierently in the paper of Roper, compared to the paper of Hottel
and Hawthorne. The latter used the following expression:
=
Dz
R
2
v
1
, (3.58)
With v
1
represents the velocity of the fuel gas mixture. In the derivation, Roper [25] used
the expression stated in equation 3.56 and derived the following expression for :
=
DzT
1
R
2
v
1
T
flame
, (3.59)
where T
1
is the initial temperature of the fuel gas mixture and T
flame
the temperature in
ame conditions. The dierence between the equations 3.57 and 3.59 is reduced to the cor-
recting factor T
flame
/T
1
, which can be multiplied by the velocity of the gas mixture v
1
. This
correction factor can also be applied to the solution of Burke and Schumann, by multiplying
v
z
by the factor T
flame
/T
1
. A comparison between the solution of Roper and the slightly
adapted Burke and Schumann solution shows a good agreement. This comparison is treated
in the next section.
3.6 Results from modeling
All the calculations are performed in Matlab, the programming scripts can be found in ap-
pendix B. The burner dimensions of the burner of Long and Smooke are used, so: L = 2mm
20
and R = 25mm. The solutions of the ame front position according to Burke and Schumann
which holds when C(r, z) = 0 are derived using a build-in script of Matlab called fzero and
uses a combination of bisection, secant, and inverse quadratic interpolation methods [29].
In this section, the results of the modeling are treated. First, the centerline height of the
ame is plotted against the volume ow of the fuel, as can be seen in gure 3.3. The Burke-
Schumann solution is compared with the solution of Roper [25], the simple ame height
model using Ficks law described in section 3.1 and experimental data using the burner of
Den Blanken [28]. As stated in the previous section, the solution of Roper closely resembles
the solution of Burke and Schumann if the temperature correction is applied. This in con-
trast to the uncorrected initial solution of Burke and Schumann, which is far from similar to
the solution of Roper. Since the diusion coecient has a great inuence on the behavior of
the solution, it is kept equal in both the corrected and uncorrected Burke-Schumann solutions.
However, the diusion coecient of the solution of Roper is derived slightly dierent, since it
is calculated using the temperature of the fuel gas and corrected by the following expression:
D = D
0
(T
flame
/T
1
)
1.67
, (3.60)
where D
0
is the diusion coecient calculated using the temperature of the fuel gas, T
1
is
considered to be the initial temperature of the fuel gas mixture and T
flame
the temperature
in ame conditions [25]. This diusion coecient is 10% lower than used for the solution of
Burke and Schumann, which is calculated using the ame temperature.
0 0.05 0.1 0.15 0.2 0.25 0.3 0.35 0.4
0
0.02
0.04
0.06
0.08
0.1
0.12
Volume flow CH
4
[l
n
/min]
F
l
a
m
e

h
e
i
g
h
t

[
m
]
Height of CH
4
flame (X
f
= 1, T
f
= 300, T
flame
= 1000, D = 2e4)


Ficks law
Roper
Burke & Schumann
Burke & Schumann corrected solution
Experimental data (R. den Blanken)
Figure 3.3: Height of a CH
4
ame with respect to the volume ow of the fuel at atmospheric
conditions. The temperature of the ame (T
flame
) is obtained from the experiment of Den
Blanken [28], which is approximately 1000 K
The advantage of the Burke-Schumann solution is the ability to calculate the concentration
of the fuel gas at any radius r and any height z. This creates the opportunity to determine
21
the outer shape of the ame, at the location where the fuel gas tends to go to zero. It is
also possible to visualize the eects of pressure using the information of section 3.4. An
example of such an image of the ame shape can be found in 3.4(a), which is calculated for
atmospheric pressure. At elevated pressures the ame tends to shrink in the radial direction,
while keeping the same height, as can be seen in 3.4(b). For better visibility of the outer
shape and so the ame front, the concentration gradient in the gures is plotted using the
inverse of the concentration and the surrounding air is set equal to zero. This increases the
contrast between fuel and oxidizer side of the diusion ame.
Burner radius [m]
F
l
a
m
e

h
e
i
g
h
t

[
m
]


5 4 3 2 1 0 1 2 3 4 5
x 10
3
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
x 10
3
(a) Flame shape at atmospheric pressure (0.1 MPa)
Burner radius [m]
F
l
a
m
e

h
e
i
g
h
t

[
m
]


5 4 3 2 1 0 1 2 3 4 5
x 10
3
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
x 10
3
(b) Flame shape at 3.0 MPa pressure
Figure 3.4: Flame shape of a CH
4
ame determined by calculating the concentration derived
by the corrected Burke-Schumann solution, with
f
= 2 mg/s, T
flame
= 1675 K
In the previous modeling results, methane gas is used in the calculation. However, in the
experiments using vaporized automotive fuels which are mixed with a carrier gas, the mole
fraction of fuel (X
f
) is an important variable. Since the mole fraction determines the abil-
ity of the liquid fuel to vaporize, a maximum mole fraction of fuel is xed by its physical
properties, more on this in topic in chapter 4. To determine the velocities of the fuel gas
mixture at any fuel mole fraction and ame height required, gure 3.5 can be used. In this
gure, the mole fractions are plotted against the gas mixture velocity, for a range of ame
heights. While the upper limit of the fuel mole fraction is xed by its properties, the velocity
is preferably kept as low as possible, because the oxidizer stream velocity is equal to this ve-
locity. The required mass ow of oxidizer is increasing extremely if the velocity is increased.
Since lowering the mole fraction will result in a greater velocity, it is preferred to keep the
mole fraction close to the maximum mole fraction imposed by the fuel properties.
To specify the amount of fuel and carrier gas required to obtain a certain ame height, which
will also be required by the specication of the fuel evaporator, gure 3.6 shows a contour
plot of ame heights and fuel mole fractions as function of the fuel and carrier gas mass
ow (in this case hexadecane and nitrogen). In the contour plot, the almost vertical lines
represent the ame height and the lines tending to go to zero are the mole fractions of fuel.
Like in the previous result, the upper limit of the mole fraction of the fuel is xed. If a
certain ame height is required for an experiment, the mass ows of fuel and carrier gas can
22
be obtained by looking at the crossing between the lines of mole fraction and ame height.
If the mass ows are determined, the specications for the fuel evaporator are also determined.
23
0
.
0
1
0
.
0
1
0
.0
1
0.01
0.01
0
.
0
2
0
.
0
2
0
.0
2
0.02
0
.
0
3
0
.
0
3
0
.0
3
0.03
0
.
0
4
0
.0
4
0.04
0
.
0
5
0
.
0
5
0
.0
5
0
.
0
6
0
.
0
6
0
.0
6
0
.
0
7
0
.0
7
0
.
0
8
0
.
0
8
0
.
0
9
0
.0
9
Molefraction fuel (X
f
)
M
i
x
t
u
r
e

v
e
l
o
c
i
t
y

(
v
m
i
x
)

[
m
/
s
]
Centerline height of the flame [m]
0.01 0.02 0.03 0.04 0.05 0.06 0.07 0.08 0.09 0.1
0.1
0.2
0.3
0.4
0.5
0.6
(a) At atmospheric pressure (0.1 MPa)
0
.
0
1
0
.
0
1
0
.
0
2
0
.
0
2
0
.
0
2
0
.
0
3
0
.
0
3
0
.
0
3
0
.
0
4
0
.
0
4
0
.
0
4
0
.0
4
0
.
0
5
0
.
0
5
0
.0
5
0
.
0
6
0
.
0
6
0
.
0
6
0
.
0
7
0
.
0
7
0
.
0
8
0
.
0
8
0
.
0
9
Molefraction fuel (X
f
)
M
i
x
t
u
r
e

v
e
l
o
c
i
t
y

(
v
m
i
x
)

[
m
/
s
]
Centerline height of the flame [m]
0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3
x 10
3
0.04
0.06
0.08
0.1
0.12
0.14
0.16
0.18
0.2
0.22
0.24
(b) At 3.0 MPa pressure
Figure 3.5: Flame height lines calculated with respect to the mole fraction hexadecane
(C
16
H
34
) and the gas speed at atmospheric conditions (a) and at elevated pressure (b)
24
0 . 0 1
0 . 0 1
0
. 0
2
0
. 0
2
0
. 0
2
0
.
0
3
0
.
0
3
0
.
0
3
0
.
0
4
0
.
0
4
0
.
0
4
0
.
0
5
0
.
0
5
0
.
0
5
0
.
0
6
0
.
0
6
0
.
0
6
0
.
0
6
0
.
0
7
0
.
0
7
0
.
0
7
0
.
0
7
0
.
0
8
0
.
0
8
0
.
0
8
0
.
0
8
0
.
0
9
0
.
0
9
0
.
0
9
0
.
0
9
0
.
1
0
.
1
0
.
1
0
.
1
0
.
1
5
0
.
1
5
0
.
1
5
0
.
2
0
.
2
0
.
2
M
a
s
s

f
l
o
w

f
u
e
l

(

f
)

[
k
g
/
s
]
M a s s f l o w n i t r o g e n (
N 2
) [ k g / s ]
M
o
l
e

f
r
a
c
t
i
o
n

f
u
e
l

[

]

a
n
d

c
e
n
t
e
r
l
i
n
e

h
e
i
g
h
t

o
f

t
h
e

f
l
a
m
e

[
m
]


0.01
0.01
0.01
0.02
0.02
0.03
0.03
0.03
0.04
0.04
0.05
0.05
0.05
0.06
0.06
0.06
0.07
0.07
0.07
0
0
.
1
0
.
2
0
.
3
0
.
4
0
.
5
0
.
6
0
.
7
0
.
8
0
.
9
1
x

1
0

6
0
0
.
2
0
.
4
0
.
6
0
.
8 1
1
.
2
1
.
4
1
.
6
1
.
8 2
x

1
0

6
Figure 3.6: Centerline height of the ame (almost vertical lines) and fuel mole fraction lines
with respect to the mass ows of (C
16
H
34
) and carrier gas (nitrogen (N
2
)) at atmospheric
conditions (T
fuel
= 473 K, T
flame
= 1200 K)
25
Chapter 4
Fuel evaporation
4.1 Considered fuels
Like stated in the introduction, the diagnostic experiments will be mainly focussed on the
investigation of modern automotive fuels and will also include bio-fuels. Besides regular
gasoline and diesel, the fuels of interest are: (bio-)ethanol, bio-diesel, pure plant oil (PPO),
dimethyl ether (DME) and liquied gas, biomass or coal (GtL, BtL, CtL). The mentioned
fuels can be obtained from a range of sources and as a consequence the mixture of the chem-
ical components can dier signicantly. This has also an inuence on the properties of the
fuel, which means each fuel requires a standard for specications and test methods. In case
of bio-diesel, or properly labeled fatty acid methyl ester, the standard is EN 14214 [30]. This
standard includes properties like density, viscosity and ash point. Using these standards,
a tabel of general properties can be made, in comparison with fossil diesel, see table 4.1. A
similar comparison can be made between bio-ethanol and fossil gasoline, see table 4.2.
Fuel Density Kinematic
viscosity
Flash
point
Caloric value
at 293 K
Cetane
number
[kg/m
3
] [mm
2
/s] [K] [MJ/kg]
Diesel 840 5 353 42.7 50
Rapeseed oil 920 74 590 37.6 40
Biodiesel 880 7.5 393 37.1 56
Biomass-to-Liquid* 760 4 361 43.9 >70
Table 4.1: Parameters of bio-fuels in comparison with fossil diesel [30]. (*Values represent
Fischer-Tropsch fuels)
Fuel Density Kinematic
viscosity
Flash
point
Caloric value
at 293 K
Octane
number
[kg/m
3
] [mm
2
/s] [K] [MJ/kg] [-]
Gasoline 760 0.6 <294 42.7 92
Bio-ethanol 790 1.5 <294 26.8 >100
Table 4.2: Parameters of bio-ethanol in comparison with fossil gasoline [30].
26
Diesel, gasoline and their biological alternatives are fuels with a complex mixture of hun-
dreds of hydrocarbons [31, 32]. The characteristics of these automotive fuels vary from each
other and even within one type of fuel, the chemical component mixture can vary from one
sample to the other. Since these deviations are a disadvantage to the comparison of the
fuels, especially in modeling, it is desirable to introduce surrogate substances which are able
to approximately reproduce thermo-physical and transport properties or create the opportu-
nity to investigate the kinetic mechanisms. The use of surrogate fuels can contribute to the
understanding of underlying processes such as vaporization, mixing, ignition and pollutant
formation of the complex fuels [31]. In order to determine the ideal surrogate fuel component
or a mixture of components it is important to specify the targets, or what quantity needs
to be predicted, like fuel properties or combustion characteristics. An overview of possible
surrogate fuel components for practical gasoline and diesel systems or for application in mod-
eling, can be found in [32] and [31]. A summary of the information can be found in tabel 4.3,
together with the temperatures at which each of the components boils. These boiling points
show a reference to the gasoline and diesel fuels. Diesel, for example, has a boiling range of
453-703 K, while gasoline has a signicantly lower boiling range, viz. 303-473 K [33]. Another
remarkable thing is the high relevance of Toluene with all the target fuels and information.
This is also due to the fact that Toluene has been extensively studied and received a great
amount of modeling attention [31].
Surrogate component Chemical
formula
Gasoline Diesel Thermo-
physical
Boiling
point [K]
n-Heptane C
7
H
16
+ - + 371.6
n-Decane C
10
H
22
- - + 447.3
n-Dodecane C
12
H
26
- - + 489.5
n-Hexadecane C
16
H
34
- + - 560.0
2,2,4-Trimethylpentane
(iso-Octane)
C
8
H
18
+ - - 372.4
2,2,4,4,6,8,8-
Heptamethylnonane
(iso-Cetane)
C
16
H
34
- + - 513.2
Toluene C
7
H
8
+ + + 383.8
Ethanol CH
5
OH - - + * 351.5
Table 4.3: Surrogate components for evaluation of gasoline, diesel and thermo-physical prop-
erty information. A plus sign (+) shows a good agreement, a minus sign () shows a limited
agreement. (*Only applicable to gasoline.)
There is one property which is applicable to almost all the considered fuels: they are in a
liquid state at atmospheric conditions. In order to combust the fuels in the co-ow diusion
burner, the fuels need to be evaporated.
27
4.2 Evaporation concepts
4.2.1 Evaporation principles
In both the experiments of Smooke and Long and the Burke-Schumann model, described in
the previous sections, gaseous fuels are used in the evaluations. Using liquid fuels, as is the
case in automotive fuels or bio-fuels, requires a dierent approach to supplying these fuels to
the burner. Since the concept of the burner and the measurement topics are supposed to be
in the line with the previous experiments of Smooke and Long, the fuel supply is prescribed
as a gas phase. To examine a laminar diusion ame it is required to have a separate supply
of fuel and oxidizer in a steady ow. This implies the liquid fuel has to be evaporated, after
which the vapor is supplied in a steady stream. Evaporation occurs when the molecules of
the liquid have sucient kinetic energy to overcome the intermolecular forces which bond the
molecules in the liquid phase and starts near the surface of the liquid [34]. The evaporation
of liquids is dependent on the properties of the uid, e.g. the boiling point, the ambient
pressure and the temperature of the liquid. Practically, the liquid fuels are chosen for the ex-
periments and so its properties are xed, leaving the pressure and temperature as a variable.
A certain temperature increase combined with a sudden pressure release, created by a throt-
tle, might give a possibility to evaporate the hydrocarbon fuels, but in that case considerable
pressure dierences have to be introduced. Since the system pressure of the experiment is
also a variable, the use of pressure dierences to evaporate the uid is far from ideal. Fur-
thermore, the control accuracy of the ows might give problems, since ow rate is in the
order of grams per hour. For these reasons, the ambient pressure variable to evaporate the
fuel is discarded immediately. As a consequence the temperature is left as the best possible
variable for evaporation. If the temperature is increased, the kinetic energy of the molecules
in the liquid fuel will increase and at a certain temperature the fuel starts to vaporize. In a
multi-component hydrocarbon fuel, like automotive fuels, the lightest components of the fuel
will tend to evaporate rst, due to their low boiling points. In case of a single component
fuel, decomposition or cracking may occur when the temperature is increased. The thermal
decomposition converts the large hydrocarbon molecules into a mixture of smaller molecules,
of which each molecule has its own boiling point [35]. These two phenomena have to be
prevented as much as possible to create a representative fuel vapor ow for the experiments.
In many evaporation systems used in existing experimental or commercial installations, an
inert gas is used as an carrier gas. To evaporate small amounts of liquid, bubbler systems are
regularly used. These systems run the carrier gas through a heated reservoir lled with a liq-
uid which has to be evaporated. The liquid tends to evaporate as soon as it contacts the gas.
The bubbles formed in the tank contain a mixture of the carrier gas and evaporated liquid.
This evaporation method is hard to apply to the vaporization of multi-component liquids.
Due to the range of boiling points of the components in such a liquid, the components with
the lowest boiling points will start to vaporize rst and leave the components with the high
boiling points in liquid phase. The risk of having such a distillation process while running
an experiment is far from ideal and therefore this concept is discarded.
4.2.2 Hot plate evaporator
A concept which is fairly comparable to the bubbler system is a hot plate evaporator. The
main dierence is the method of liquid supply. While the bubbler system has a heated reser-
28
voir, the hot plate or spray evaporator has an external reservoir and the liquid is inserted in
the module through a hypodermic (hollow) needle. The spray from the needle hits a heated
plate inside the evaporator which will vaporize the liquid. Similar to the bubbler system, a
carrier gas will transport the vapor out of the evaporator. To avoid cooling the evaporated
uid, the carrier gas is preheated. An example of a hot plate evaporator is the module of
Vranos [36, 37], see gure 4.1, which is used to investigate the decomposition of vaporizing
hydrocarbons with a high boiling point, for instance hexadecane. The evaporator was en-
tirely made out of copper, except for the fuel supply tube, and the internal surfaces where
nickel platted. The latter was done to avoid deposits of solid residues on the heated plate
as much as possible. Unfortunately, deposits were observed during the course of testing [37].
This might be a drawback of using such an evaporator to produce a steady vapor ow. On
the other hand, the investigations of Vranos conclude that the fraction of decomposed fuel is
signicantly small if the temperature of the carrier gas is suciently high [37], which means
a representative fuel vapor can be created.
Figure 4.1: Two sectional views of the hot plate evaporator of Vranos [36, 37].
Another example of a hot plate evaporator is the module of Stobakk, see gure 4.2, which is
conceptually similar to the one of Vranos. The fuel is injected by a needle into a box which
is heated from underneath by a heated plate and all the way around by heating tape. A
pre-heated carrier gas is used to pressurize the fuel line via a by-pass and simultaneously
transporting the vaporized fuel to the exit of the evaporator. In the investigations of Sto-
bakk, a counterow burner is connected to the evaporator and is used for ame extinction
measurements. In their measurements, they used heptane, two component fuels and diesel
fuel. The latter fuel gave problems due to high temperatures required in the evaporator,
because some materials of the evaporator could not resist such temperatures. On the other
hand, contrary to the ndings of Vranos, they claim that all the components of the fuel are
uniformly evaporated and no heavy components, deposits, are left in the evaporator.
29
Figure 4.2: The hot plate evaporator design of Preben Stobakk [38].
4.2.3 Controlled evaporator mixer
A dierent concept to vaporize liquid in a carrier gas stream is obtained by a mixture vapor-
izer. In this concept, the liquid and carrier gas are mixed before both the uids are heated.
This mixing process can be controlled precisely, which results in an accurate mixture com-
position, which consists of liquid droplets mixed in the carrier gas. After the mixing process,
the mixture is externally heated, which vaporizes the droplets. An example of a mixture
vaporizer is the controlled evaporator mixer, or short CEM, of the company Bronkhorst
High-Tech, which is also a supplier of mass ow controllers. The CEM module, see gure
4.3, can be divided into a mixing part, on the top side, and a heating part, at the bottom
side of the module.
The mixing part mainly consist of a control valve and a liquid and gas connection. The con-
trol valve is able to restrict and control the liquid ow. The restriction is achieved by a small
orice, with a diameter of about 100 m, which can be closed by a plunger. The plunger
is spring loaded and naturally closed. A electric magnetic force is able to open the plunger,
which causes the liquid to ow through the orice. The mass ow of the liquid is measured
upstream and by adjusting the magnetic force of the valve, the ow can be controlled. When
the liquid is able to pass the orice, it will be cut of in small droplets by the carrier gas ow,
which is entrained just underneath the orice. This process creates a mixture of droplets
and carrier gas. If the carrier gas mass ow is also measured and controlled, a very accurate
mixture can be created. After the mixing process the mixture is forced to ow to the heating
part of the module. The heating part consists of a spiral which is casted in a solid metal
block and is externally heated. The mixture of liquid droplets and carrier gas ows through
the spiral and heats up. If the temperature of the heated block is sucient, the droplets in
the mixture will vaporize. This process results in a stable and accurately controllable vapor
ow. The main drawback related to the liquids considered for the experiments regarding au-
tomotive fuels, is the limited temperature of the CEM module. Due to prevention of melting
the metal block, the temperature of the module is restricted to a maximum of 483 K.
30
Figure 4.3: A schematic lay out of a Controlled Evaporator Mixer.
4.2.4 Capillary force vaporizer
Like stated before, the physical properties of the uids considered for the experiments are
xed, but the majority of the properties are dependent on temperature, especially when a
phase change is taken into account. Two important properties depending on temperature
are density and viscosity. The capillary force vaporizer (CFV), of the company Vapore, uses
these property changes when a liquid phase transforms to a gas phase. The CFV module
consists of three dierent, specially engineered, ceramic disks: an insulator, a vapor gen-
erator and an orice disk, see gure 4.4. The insulator disk, at the bottom, is in contact
with the liquid and consists out of a porous material, which is able to draw the liquid out
of its reservoir. The vapor generator disk, in the middle, consist of very high porosity and
exceptionally small uniform pores. The orice disk is xed on top of the vapor generator disk
and is able to collect the vapor which exits the pores. Power to deliver heat for evaporation
can be supplied from the top of the orice disk and can reach down to the vapor generator
disk by thermal-mechanical conduction or electric resistance.
31
Figure 4.4: A schematic lay out of a Capillary Force Vaporizer [40].
The capillary force vaporizer, like the name already suggests, uses the capillary pressure of a
liquid in a porous solid. The two driving forces behind this pressure are the force of adhesion
between the molecules of a liquid, which is responsible for the surface tension, and the force
of adhesion between the liquid molecules and the surface of the solid [39]. The capillary
pressure is reversely proportional to the diameter of the pores, which implies a decrease of
the diameter, causes an increases of the pressure. In the vapor generator disk, the exter-
nally applied heat causes the liquid to vaporize and so the density and viscosity of the uid
changes. The viscosity of the gas phase of a uid is lower than that of its liquid phase, but
the dierence in density is many times higher. This implies the vapor ows easier through
the pores than the liquid, but at an equal mass ow, the vapor requires signicantly more
volume. As a consequence the vapor must have a higher velocity than the liquid at an equiv-
alent mass. As a result the porous material hinders the vapor ow such that the pressure will
increase. In the end, the vapor will escape through the center aperture in the orice disk with
velocities which can reach the speed of sound. In this way, the capillarity force vaporizer is
able to vaporize any liquid, so also the considered automotive fuels. The main disadvantage
is that one CFV module is only capable to supply certain mass ows at certain pressures
and temperatures for one certain liquid. A balance between capillary pressure, porosity and
thickness of the ceramic disks and heat supply must be made for determining the mass ow
and pressure for each type of liquid.
4.3 Evaluation of evaporation concepts
In the previous section, three dierent evaporation devices were introduced. One thing that
these three devices have in common, is the requirement of heat to create the vapor. The main
dierence between the devices is the way of increasing the liquid surface, so it will vaporize
easier and require a lower temperature than when the liquid is in a reservoir. The hot plate
vaporizer uses a spray to increase the surface, the CEM module uses a special mixing process
32
to create droplets and the CFV module uses extremely small pores. The method of supplying
heat is also dierent, but is mainly done by external heating elements shaped to t within
the device. To evaluate the devices to conclude which device is best applicable to the system
for the experiments, a number of criteria has been set up. The rst criterion is the capability
to vaporize the fuels with a high boiling point, requiring high temperatures for evaporation,
which might give problems to the materials inside the devices. The second criterion is the
guaranty of a fair vapor quality and purity, which creates a representative vapor ow for the
experiments. A representative vapor ow implies that the chemical structure of the vapor is
equal to the structure at liquid phase. Deposition of heavy components of the fuel on parts
of the device, creating solid residues, or decomposition of the fuel due to high temperature
cracking, might destroy the chemical structure, which has to be prevented. The third cri-
terion is the possibility to accurately control the mass ow which can easily be reproduced.
This to control the experiments and be able to reproduce results. The fourth criterion is
referring to the possibility to use the device in a pressurized environment, required for the
experiments. The devices have to withstand elevated pressures and operating experience in
these environments might be of great value. The last condition is not the least important
one: the availability of the devices. Can the components of the device be delivered from shelf
or does it have to be designed and constructed? Table 4.4 shows an overview of the criteria
and gives a comparison between the three devices.
From this comparison, a choice of the evaporator device have been made. Due to the re-
producible and accurate mass ows which can be created, the experience in high pressure
environments and the good availability of the device, the controlled evaporator mixer is cho-
sen as the denite concept for vaporizing the fuel in the experiments. The only drawback is
the limit of the maximum temperature, which gives problems when when fuels are consid-
ered with high boiling points. A solution is described in the next section, which gives also
an overview of the whole vapor supply system.
4.4 Final evaporation concept
In the previous section, a denite evaporation concept has been chosen. From the three
options, the controlled evaporator mixer is the best option applicable for the experiment.
However, there is one issue which has to be taken into account. The module has a limited
maximum temperature of 483 K, which is too low to evaporate the components in the au-
tomotive fuels with a high boiling point, such as hexadecane (C
16
H
34
), which has a boiling
point of 560 K. This issue is solved using the partial pressure of the carrier gas which is
mixed with the liquid or the vapor pressure of the fuel in the mixture. The higher the par-
tial pressure of the carrier gas, the more the liquid droplets are surrounded by the gas, the
easier the molecules can escape from the liquid. If the mixture of liquid and carrier gas is
suciently heated, the liquid will be entirely vaporized. To determine the partial pressure,
the maximum vapor pressure of the liquid at the adjusted temperature of the evaporator is
required. Figure 4.5 shows a vapor pressure chart of a range of hydrocarbon fuels. In every
point above the line of a fuel, the fuel is in a liquid phase and in every point below the line
it is in a gas phase. From this chart the partial pressure of a fuel p
f
can be determined at a
given temperature. Together with the total pressure of the fuel and carrier gas mixture, the
fuel mole fraction can be determined by:
33
Hot plate evap-
orator
Controlled
evaporator
mixer
Capillary force
vaporizer
Mass ow range
[g/h]
Flexible (depend-
ing on design)
0.0015 - 1200 5 - 250
Capability to
vaporize fuels
with high boiling
points
High temper-
atures require
special materials
in the construc-
tion
Limited maximum
temperature (483
K); measures have
to be taken to va-
porize heavy fuel
components
Device is able to
vaporize all auto-
motive fuels
Quality/purity of
the vapor
Quality debatable
due to chances
of deposition of
solid residues and
high tempera-
tures stimulate
decomposition
The restricted
temperature re-
duces the chance
of decomposition;
the device has a
high reproducibil-
ity
Creates a pure va-
por ow due to
the thermal bal-
ance of mass ow
and pressure
Controllability
and accuracy of
mass ow(s)
Flows can be
controlled by ac-
curate mass ow
controllers
Equal to the hot
plate evaporator
Mass ow is a
balance of poros-
ity and tempera-
ture of the module
Possibilities to op-
erate in high pres-
sure environments
Possible, but there
is no experience
in pressurized en-
vironments
Great experience
in pressurized
environments,
using pressure
controllers
Applicable in lim-
ited pressurized
environments,
but is depen-
dent on module
conguration
Availability of the
device
Device has to be
designed and con-
structed
Device can be
build out of di-
rectly available
components
Modules are tem-
porarily not avail-
able
Table 4.4: Comparison between the three evaporator devices
X
f
=
p
f
p
t
, (4.1)
where p
t
is the total pressure of the mixture. For example, if hexadecane as fuel is considered
and the maximum evaporator temperature is limited to 473 K, the vapor pressure of the
fuel is maximum 0.075 bar, according to gure 4.5. This means, if the system is operated at
atmospheric pressure (1 bar), the mole fraction fuel X
f
is 0.075, since X
fuel
= p
f
/p
t
. The
mole fraction of the carrier gas is determined by: X
gas
= 1X
f
. Now that the mole fractions
are determined and the mass ow of the evaporated fuel and carrier gas mixture is known,
the mass ow fuel can be calculated using:

f
=
t
X
f
M
f

M
, (4.2)
34
273 323 373 423 473 523 573 623 673
10
3
10
2
10
1
10
0
10
1
10
2
Temperature [K]
P
r
e
s
s
u
r
e

[
b
a
r
]


C
2
H
6
C
4
H
10
C
6
H
14
C
8
H
18
C
10
H
22
C
12
H
26
C
14
H
30
C
16
H
34
C
18
H
38
C
20
H
42
Figure 4.5: Vapor pressure chart of a range of hydrocarbons [41].
where
f
and
t
are the mass ow of respectively the fuel and the total mixture, M
f
is the
molar mass of the fuel and

M is the mean molar mass of the fuel and carrier gas mixture.
The mass ows in the evaporator system are measured and controlled by mass ow controllers,
while the pressure of the system is controlled by a pressure controller. Figure 4.6 shows a
schematic overview of the experiment, focused on the vapor supply. The liquid fuel is stored
in a membrane accumulator (2 liter) and is pressurized by the carrier gas of which the pressure
is controlled by a pressure controller. Before the mass ow of the fuel is measured the liquid
is rst ltered by an inline lter, with a pore size of 7 m. The mixing part of the CEM
module receives a signal from the mass ow meter and controls the ow by opening a valve.
Together with the fuel, the carrier gas is introduced in the mixing part. Nitrogen is chosen
to function as carrier gas, as it is an inert gas in combustion, which is also in great amount
available in air. The nitrogen is available from a gas bottle and the ow is controlled by
a gas mass ow controller. For a further explanation of the construction and principles of
the mass ow controllers and the controlled evaporator mixer, see appendix A. After the
ow is mixed, the mixture is heated and the liquid fuel will vaporize in the heating spiral.
After the fuel is vaporized, the vapor can be supplied to the high pressure burner. Between
the CEM module and the burner, the vapor has to be kept at a temperature of at least the
temperature adjusted on the CEM module. This is done via a exible heated hose, which
is a highly insulated hose containing a exible tube surrounded by a heating element and is
able to deliver a maximum power of 110W. To minimize the distance the vapor has to travel
before reaching the burner, while maintaining as much as exibility as possible, the length
is compromised to be 1 meter. The inner diameter of the hose is 4 mm, see also table 4.5
35
Figure 4.6: A schematic overview of the experiment using the controlled evaporator mixer.
Explanation of the components: 1: pressure controller to control the accumulator pressure,
2: pressurized fuel accumulator (2l. storage tank), 3: fuel lter, 4: liquid mass ow meter, 5:
controlled evaporator mixer, 6: nitrogen gas bottle, 7: nitrogen mass ow controller, 8: air
reservoir, 9: air mass ow meter, 10: pressure controller to control total system pressure.
for all tubing diameters, which implies the vapor volume between the CEM module and the
burner is approximately 12.6 ml. With starting up or shutting down the system, this volume
is extremely important to create a representative mass ow and for safety issues. To avoid
condensation when the system, and so the heated hose, is shut down, the system should be
purged with pure nitrogen till all the combustible vapor is out of the system. Similarly to
the carrier gas, the air or oxidizer ow is controlled by a mass ow controller and is available
from a gas bottle or a compressor.
Tubing Inner/outer diameter Diameter
Liquid fuel supply outer 1/8 inch
Carrier gas supply outer 6 mm
Vapor exit of CEM outer 1/8 inch
Heated tube inner 4 mm
Air/oxidizer supply outer 6 mm
Table 4.5: Diameters of the tubes used in the CEM set up.
36
Chapter 5
High pressure burner
5.1 Pressure vessel design options
The ames which are investigated in the experiments are supposed to be investigated in an
environment with elevated pressures up to 3 MPa. This requires a certain volume which
can withstand this elevated pressure, while creating the opportunity to optically investigate
a diusion ame inside the pressurized volume. There are basically two options of pressure
vessel design. The most applied pressure vessel design has a cylindrical shape, like discussed
in [4244]. An example of such a pressure vessel is shown in gure 5.1(a). Since the vessel
has to be optically accessible, external windows are required to obtain this access. The win-
dows need to be external, because there is not enough material structure in the wall of the
main cylinder to attach the windows. Therefore, the design of the cylindrical vessel contains
welded support structures which are designed to support the windows. If the required win-
dows become suciently large, the diameter of the main cylinder may become unfavorably
large compared to the diameter of the burner. In contrast to the cylindrical vessel, the cubic
shaped vessel design, like showed in gure 5.1(b), doesnt require external windows. This
design is focused on integrating the windows into the walls of the vessel. While the external
shape is cubical, the internal structure is made out of three drilled cylinders through the
three axes of the cube, which meet and merge in the center of this cube. The result is a
robust and exible high pressure design, with the possibility to have six access points from
a dierent direction. It also oers the opportunity to create additional holes to insert other
measurement equipment, for example thermocouples for temperature measurements. The
internal volume of the cylindrically shaped vessel of the example showed in 5.1(a) is about 27
dm
3
, while the internal volume of the cubic shaped vessel is 1.6 dm
3
, which is signicantly
smaller, which might inuence internal ows. However, since the exterior of the cubic shaped
vessel is cubically and the interior is cylindrically shaped, the vessel contains substantially
more material structure that the cylindrical shaped pressure vessel. This might give a disad-
vantage regarding the mobility of the experiment, but in the end, the exibility of the cubic
vessel creates an added value and is making this design more favorable than the cylindrical
design. Therefore it is decided to use the cubic vessel design for the experiments.
37
(a) Cylindrically shaped pressure vessel, with two op-
tical ports [42].
(b) Cubically shaped pressure vessel, with at least four
optical ports and eight additional holes (on the cor-
ners)
Figure 5.1: Options for a design of a high pressure vessel, which is able to withstand 3 MPa.
5.2 Burner design
5.2.1 Co-ow burner evolution
As previously described in chapter 2, Long and Smooke [418] have made a design of a co-
ow burner, which is used in their experiments investigating diusion ame properties. The
burner is an evolution of the burner of Mitchell [3]. The most important dierences between
the two burners are the internal diameters of the fuel tube and the co-axial oxidizer tube,
mainly due to a decrease in experimental scale, i.e. smaller investigated ames. The burner
of Long and Smooke is made commercially available, which means there is the opportunity
of other parties to compare results obtained from experiments performed using the burner.
A design drawing of the burner can be found in gure 5.2(a). The inner diameter of the
fuel tube, so the tube in the center of the burner, is 4 mm, while the inner diameter of the
outer tube, where the oxidizer stream is supposed to ow, is equal to 50 mm. The height
of the burner, from the bottom of the fuel compartment to the top of the fuel tube is 100
mm. The burner used for the experiments with automotive fuel has to be placed inside a
pressure vessel, which means the burner of Long and Smooke cannot be used directly, but
the internal dimensions can be transferred to the adapted design. Both the t of the burner
38
inside the pressure vessel and the possibility to use the burner under elevated pressures has
to be considered in the new design. The t of the burner inside the pressure vessel is done
by clamping the burner in one of the holes of the cubic shaped pressure vessel, see gure
5.1(b). In this case, the burner is partly placed inside the vessel, while the major part is
left outside the vessel. This is done to eciently use the space inside the pressure vessel
and create a perfect alinement with the optical ports. Consequently, the pressure dierence
between inside and outside of the burner is increased signicantly compared to the burner
of Long and Smooke, which implies the outer walls of the burner require sucient strength
to withstand the pressure dierence. Therefore, the wall thickness of the outer wall of the
burner has to be increased. As a result, the burner of Long and Smooke is adapted to a new
design co-ow burner, which is shown in gure 5.2(a).
(a) Drawing of the atmospheric co-ow burner of Long
and Smooke [418]
(b) Sectional view of the o-
ow burner designed for ele-
vated pressures
Figure 5.2: The development of the co-ow burner.
5.2.2 Component integration
Besides the burner and the pressure vessel, there are several other components required to
run the experiments under elevated pressures and need to be attached to the pressure vessel.
This attachment can be done via the holes which are left after the burner is attached. Optical
acces is required, which means quartz windows which can withstand the pressure dierence
between the in- and outside of the vessel and support rings to support the windows are also
required. Quartz windows are chosen due to their capability to withstand the pressure bet-
ter than normal glass, while it oers the benet to be transparent to great wavelength range
of light (up to 90% transparent to a range of 200 nanometer to 2.5 micrometer light [48]),
which is important if laser optic measurements are considered. In total, four windows can be
installed if required, which can be placed in the holes perpendicular to the hole the burner
is attached to. Furthermore, a top chimney is necessary to release the exhaust gasses out
of the pressurized environment. The top chimney is designed to guide the exhaust gasses
to a central point where the gasses can escape through a smaller aperture, see also gure
39
5.3. The aperture is also used to insert a glow plug to be able to ignite the ame. The glow
plug is inserted in the top of the chimney and can reach the burner via a pressure tight slide
mechanism. Even during an experiment under elevated pressure it is possible to slide the
igniter to the location where the ame has to be ignited and ignite the ame. If the ame
extinguishes, the pressure dont have to drop back to atmospheric pressure to ignite the ame
again. The exhaust gases can escape through an aperture on the side of the chimney at the
outside of the pressure vessel. A connector is placed in the aperture and a tube is guiding
the exhaust gases through a heat exchanger to cool the gases. The cooling will condensate
the waterdamp in the exhaust gases. After the condensation, the gas is directed to the back
pressure controller, which measures and controls the pressure of the whole system. An inner
chimney is designed to guide the ows of the evaporated fuel mixture and especially the
oxidizer co-ow stream out of the burner. This chimney can be connected to the burner if
the ows are disturbed by the exhaust gasses in high pressure measurements, as experienced
by Thomson [43]. The chimney consists out of a cylinder which can support windows to
maintain optical access to the ame. The materials of which each component is made can
be seen in table 5.1.
Component Material Yield strength
[MPa]
Pressure vessel C-45 (steel) 690
Co-ow burner Al 6061 (Aluminium) 320
Windows Quartz (Suprasil) 24
Window support ring C-45 (steel) 690
Co-ow burner support ring Stainless steel 520
Outer chimney C-45 (steel) 690
Table 5.1: Materials of the components [46].
5.2.3 Strength calculations
The co-ow burner, the quartz windows and the support rings are the most fragile compo-
nents of the pressure burner, with respect to the strength to withstand high pressures, since
the pressure vessel itself is over dimensioned. A safety factor for all components is set to 8,
which is initially the safety factor of the quartz windows. Lets rst consider the required
wall thickness of the burner. This can be calculated using the following equation from [45],
see also gure 5.4:

2
=
pb
2
_
a
2
+r
2
_
r
2
(a
2
b
2
)
. (5.1)
Where
2
is the allowed strength, depending on the material, p is the pressure inside the
vessel and a, b and r are explained in gure 5.4. At r = b, the expression becomes:

2,max
=
p
_
a
2
+b
2
_
(a
2
b
2
)
. (5.2)
40
(a) The outer view of the pressure burner design (b) Sectional view of the pressure burner design
Figure 5.3: The denite pressure burner design. Explanation of the numbers: 1: pressure
vessel, 2: co-ow burner, 3: quartz window, 4: window support ring, 5: inner chimney, 6:
top chimney.
Given the yield strength from table 5.1, the wall thickness can be determined as function
of the internal vessel pressure. As can be seen in gure 5.5, an outer radius of 30 mm is
sucient to withstand 3 MPa, which means the wall thickness is 5 mm. A safety factor of 8
has been used in the calculation.
The strength of the support rings of both the windows and the burner can be calculated
using the following expression [45]:
=
0.03pR
2
t
2
. (5.3)
Where is again the allowed strength, R is the radius of the holes in the pressure vessel, which
is 50 and 55 mm for respectively the window and burner support ring, and t is the thickness
of the support rings. The pressure p has to be recalculated to determine the pressure on the
contact surface of the rings, since it also has to withstand the force applied by the pressure
of the windows. From this information, including the safety factor of 8, it can be determined
that a thickness of more than 5 mm is sucient for all the support rings. The thickness of
41
Figure 5.4: Schematic drawing used by calculating material strength.
25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
Outer radius [mm]
I
n
t
e
r
a
l

p
r
e
s
s
u
r
e

[
M
P
a
]
Figure 5.5: Radius of the outer wall of the pressurized burner as function of its internal vessel
pressure. The inner radius of the outer tube of the co-ow burner is 25 mm.
the quartz windows can be calculated using the following expression:
t = 0.56(2R)
_
p
0.33
, (5.4)
where R is the radius of the windows. From this expression, with the safety factor of 8, it
can be determined that the thickness of the windows is at least 35 mm.
5.2.4 Measures for increasing ame stability
Stabilizing the ame, especially in high pressure conditions, is of great importance, since a
stable ame is required for an accurate investigation of ame properties. As experienced by
Thomson [43], an inner chimney is inevitable if the internal vessel pressure exceeds 2 MPa,
using their combustion chamber. This is done to avoid condensed water droplets from the
42
Figure 5.6: The attachment of the co-ow burner to the pressure vessel: 1: co-ow burner,
2: fuel supply tube, 3: large ow straightener, 4: small ow straightener, 5: heat insulating
ring, 6: burner support ring.
vapor of the exhaust gasses to reach the ows coming out of the burner. The recirculating
water droplets interact with the ame causing ame instabilities. The walls of the inner
chimney limit the recirculation of exhaust gasses and thus enhancing ame stability [43].
Another factor which inuences the ame stability is the co-ow of the oxidizer. In this area,
certain measures can be taken to avoid ow disturbances and so ame instabilities. The
measures could be:
introducing ow straighteners (porous materials, honeycomb structure, perforated plate,
etc.),
introducing small beads to create a uniform velocity eld (with typical bead diameter
of around 3 mm),
a proper connection of the gas supply
and the exibility to vary the location or heights of these option,
These measures are applied to the design of the co-ow burner, as much as possible. As can
be seen in gure 5.6, the heights of the ow straighteners within the burner are exible and
can be changed by replacing the support rings between the straighteners.
5.2.5 Heating the burner
The automotive fuels which are considered for the experiment have to be vaporized and
therefore the fuel is supplied to the co-ow as a heated gas. To avoid the cooling of this
43
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 5
x 10
3
340
360
380
400
420
440
460
480
Thickness of PTFE ring [m]
T
e
m
p
e
r
a
t
u
r
e

[
K
]
Temperature decrease through PTFE ring [K]
Figure 5.7: Temperature decrease managed by the insulating ring (PTFE) as function of the
thickness of the ring.
vapor, the burner needs to be heated. This heat is supplied by a heated ring (supplying
maximally 110 W of heat) which is mounted around the burner and is capable to keep the
temperature of the burner at a constant temperature using a temperature controller. To
enhance this control and to avoid unnecessary heat loss, the heated burner is isolated from
the pressure vessel by a heat insulating ring made out of PTFE (Teon). To determine the
heat ow through the ring, Newtons law of cooling is applied to this situation. The heat
loss though the ring can be calculated using the following expression:
Q =
k
t
A(T
2
T
1
) . (5.5)
Where Q represents the heat ow per unit of time, k thermal conductivity of the PTFE
material, which is 0.28 [W/m K] [47], t is the thickness of the PTFE material, A is taken
to be the inner surface of the ring and T
1
and T
2
represent respectively the pressure vessel
and burner temperature. As can be seen in gure 5.6, the space between the co-ow burner
and the pressure vessel in limited. Due to this limited space, the thickness of the ring is
restricted to a maximum of 5 mm. To determine the temperature decrease managed by the
ring, equation 5.5 is used. Figure 5.7 shows this temperature decrease as function of the
thickness of the ring at a heat loss of 70 W. However, more heat is lost through the stainless
steel support ring which is supporting the burner. While stainless steel has a much lower
thermal conductivity than the steel of the pressure vessel, it is about 100 times larger than
the thermal conductivity of the PTFE material. For this reason, the contact surface between
the burner and the ring is kept as small as possible.
44
5.3 Safety issues
The experiment is considering the combustion of preheated fuel in a pressurized environment.
This means measures have to be taken to secure safety of the whole system. This safety is
referred to the chance of an explosion, due to the possible existence of a stoichiometric mixture
of fuel and oxygen inside the pressurized vessel. This possibility can occur when the ame
is extinguished in every possible way, while the fuel supply is still ongoing. Therefore, the
main solution to ensure safety is to shut down the mass ow of the fuel supply, when there
is no ame. This requires a method to measure the presence of a ame inside the pressure
vessel. This can be achieved by two methods:
1. the measurement of the temperature of the exhaust gasses, a sudden decrease in tem-
perature will indicate the ame is extinguished;
2. a commercially available ame detection device, this device will measure the light in-
tensity of a certain wave length emitted by the ame (UV-light), a sudden decrease in
intensity will indicate the ame is extinguished.
If the signal from these detection devices indicates that there is no ame, the alarm on the
power supply and read-out unit of the mass ow controller can be used to stop the mass
ows. Despite these measures, an explosion is still a possibility, due to malfunctions of the
devices. To ensure safety, the pressure cell is equipped with elements which ensure safety,
these elements are:
1. a burst disk is installed, which will break if a certain pressure is reached (e.g. in case
of an explosion);
2. windows which wont be used, can be closed by a steal plate replacing the support ring;
3. the nitrogen ow can purge the pressure vessel before every ignition of the ame.
The burst disk can be installed in one of the extra holes available on the pressure vessel.
Furthermore, the safety is also increased by applying valves in the fuel supply to the burner,
which creates the opportunity to manually shut down the fuel supply if no measurement
is ongoing. For optimal safety, the measurements have to be operated remotely, i.e. from
another room. This is possible, because the mass ow controllers can be controlled remotely.
If the system is running and people are in the same room, it is recommended to use protection
shields around the set up. In case of an explosion, the hot gases will be blocked by the
protection shields.
45
Chapter 6
Conclusions and Recommendations
6.1 Conclusions and discussion
In the future, the number of dierent kinds of (bio-)fuels will increase, since there is a variety
of sources available. In order to do research on the characteristics of the fuels, an experiment
is designed which makes it possible to investigate a laminar co-ow diusion ame in pres-
surized environment, using optical diagnostic measurement techniques.
The design of the laminar co-ow burner is based on the design made by Long and Smooke
[418], which is used to investigate laminar diusion ames on temperatures, species mole
fractions and soot properties using laser diagnostics. In their work, they compared data from
the laser-diagnostic experiments with computational models. The agreement between the
data and the models was fairly good, especially concerning the temperature and major and
minor species. However, the computational model of soot has some diculties in accurately
reproducing the soot distribution, compared to experimental data. This is mainly the result
of an underestimation of the temperatures in the ame predicted by the model. To continue
the work of Long and Smooke, while expanding the possibility to use liquid fuels in a pres-
surized environment, the rough dimensions are kept the same.
To determine the mass ow of fuel necessary to create a certain ame height, the solution of
the Burke and Schumann [2] ame height model is derived and compared with other models.
From the derivation, it can be concluded that the solution is very sensitive to temperature,
because of two reasons. The rst reason is the temperature dependency of the diusion
coecient. Diusion of the fuel and oxidizer starts at the tip of the fuel tube of the co-ow
burner and the mixing process of these gases continues till the ame front is reached. During
this process the temperature will rise. In the modeling of the ame height, the maximum
ame temperature, reached at the ame front, is used. Since it is dicult to determine this
maximum ame temperature, the ame temperature is experimentally obtained from the
experiment of Den Blanken [28], which is approximately 1000 K. The second reason for the
temperature sensitivity is the velocity increase due to a decreasing density of the gas if the
temperature increases. In the model of Roper [25], the velocity of the gas is corrected by a
factor which is dependent on the temperature of the fuel and the maximum temperature of
the ame. This correction is applied to both the models of Roper and Burke-Schumann. If
the models are compared, a good agreement can be observed from both solution methods.
The ame height is not dependent on pressure, but the shape, so the radius dependent on the
height, changes if the pressure is increased. This change is due to the pressure dependency
46
of the mole fraction of the gas mixtures.
Since liquid fuels are considered for the experiment, the fuels have to be vaporized before
using the fuels in the co-ow burner. After an evaluation, the controlled evaporator mixer
is chosen as the best option for evaporating the liquid fuels. This evaporator uses a mix-
ing process combined with a heating process to create an accurate vapor ow. The main
drawback of this system is the restricted temperature of the heating process, which is set
to a maximum of 473 K. Since the considered fuels have a boiling point higher than this
temperature, a method is introduced which makes it possible to vaporize all the fuels. This
method uses the vapor pressure of the fuel at the maximum temperature of the evaporator,
which is used to determine the mole fraction of the fuel in the mixture of fuel and carrier
gas. After the mixture is heated, the fuel is vaporized and is led through a heated hose to
the burner. The hose should supply sucient heat to avoid condensation.
In the experiment, the laminar diusion ame has to be investigated in a pressurized envi-
ronment. Two options for a pressure vessel are treated, with main focus on the attachment
of the windows to create optical access. A cubically shaped vessel is chosen, which oers the
opportunity to create a exible design. This exibility is achieved by six holes, which can
function as optical ports or to create access for the co-ow burner and the exhaust chim-
ney. Additional holes are available to insert measurement equipment and a burst disk, which
ensures the quartz windows wont experience a higher pressure than they are designed to
withstand, in case of an explosion. The co-ow burner, which is attached on the bottom side
of the pressure vessel, has to be heated to ensure the heated vapor does not condense in the
burner. The heating is applied by a ring shaped heating element which is clamped around
the burner. To avoid the heating of the whole pressure vessel an insulating ring is installed
between the burner and the vessel. This will limit the heat ow between these components,
although it does not ensure the vessel will not heat up. The co-ow burner is equipped with
elements which improve the stability of the co-ow, such as ow straighteners and small
beads. The latter will create a uniform velocity eld across the diameter of the burner.
6.2 Recommendations
The results of the ame height model can be veried by carrying out experiments with dif-
ferent fuels and mass ows. Corrections to the model can be made by the changing the input
temperature for the diusion coecient and by adapting the temperature dependent factor
which is multiplied by the gas velocity, keeping in mind that the model of Burke and Schu-
man is assuming an equal velocity for the fuel gas and for the oxidizer co-ow. This means,
practical measures have to be taken to ensure an equal velocity in both gas streams. The
co-ow burner is designed to install elements, which can create uniform ows, in multiple
heights inside the burner.
Since the burner is heated externally, the co-ow of air, or other oxidizer, is also heated,
because the heat ux from the outer wall has to reach the fuel tube in the center of the
burner. This implies the air is heated up to an unknown temperature. To avoid this, the
temperature of the air can also be preheated, in the same way as the vapor ow. In that
case the temperature of the gas surrounding the ame is determined, which can be of great
importance when doing laser optical measurements.
47
The mass ow controllers are calibrated under standard conditions. In case of liquids and
especially fuels, the calibration of the mass ow controllers is performed using iso-propanol
at room temperatures. During the measurements using the fuels, the calibrated signal is
converted to the correct value applicable to the measured fuel, using a correction factor.
This correction factor is determined at one temperature using the properties of the liquid.
Since the conditions in the experiment are dierent from both the calibration and the de-
termination of the correction factor, it is wise to calibrate the mass ow controller at the
conditions of the experiment. If the deviation is signicant for one liquid, i.e. more than 1%,
it is recommended to do a calibration for all liquids.
48
Acknowledgement
First of all I would like to thank my supervisors Philip de Goey and Carlo Luijten for their
support they gave me. Their knowledge, encouragement and patience helped me a lot during
my graduation period. In a later stadium, Marcelo de Andrade came to Eindhoven to join the
project and became my daily supervisor. His enthusiasm and his sense of humor really made
it fun for me to work on the project. The meetings, also together with Gerben Jans were
productive and certainly an enjoyment. I also want to thank the people from the company
Bronkhorst High Tech, for their great support and the invitation to their product training.
And last, but not least, I want to thank the technical sta and specially: Wout de Boer,
Gerard van Hout, Henri Vliegen and Gerard van Hattum for their technical assistance and
valuable support.
Ralf van der Zanden
Eindhoven, Januari, 2008
49
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52
Appendix A
Bronkhorst product training day
notes
A.1 Principles of a mass ow controller
A.1.1 Liqui-ow
The Liqui-ow mass ow controller (MFC), for measuring small amounts of liquids,
consist out of a measurement and a controller part. The mass ow is measured using a
sensor, which is a small stainless steel capillary through which the medium is owing.
The diameter of the capillary depends on the mass ow rate and is typically smaller
than the externally connected tube diameter. The sensor contains two sensing elements:
a temperature sensor upstream and a heating element downstream. The heating element
creates a certain temperature increase T in the medium inside the capillary. The
amount of heat absorbed by the medium from the heating element is dependent on
the mass of the medium. When there is no movement of the mass, the heater power
necessary to create the temperature T will be very low and constant. However, when
the mass ow rate of the medium is increased, the heater power required to maintain
the temperature T has to be increased. This power increase is linearly dependent
on the mass ow rate, which creates the opportunity to perform accurate mass ow
measurements.
When the mass ow rate of the uid is determined, the ow is controlled separately by
a control valve. The control valve is operated by a coil which is magnetized by running
a current through the wires of the coil. When the coil is fully magnetic, the Lorenz
force pulls a plunger holder, which is partly placed in the center of the coil, inwards. A
at linear spring is xed at the center of the plunger holder and at the outside to an
anchored sleeve. If the Lorenz force is large enough to overcome the force of the spring,
the plunger holder is pulled into the coil. An elastomer plunger, which is mounted in
the plunger holder, closes an aperture in on orice, using the force of the linear spring.
The plunger is surrounded by a uid, which is supposed to ow through the aperture in
a determined mass ow. This ow can be set by the amount of current running through
the coil, consequently regulating the force on the spring and so creating a required space
between the plunger and the orice to control the uid through the aperture.
53
Figure A.1: The outside and inside of a mass ow controller.
A.1.2 EL-ow
The EL-ow, the mass ow controller for gaseous media, uses the same principles as
the Liqui-ow MFC. However, there are some characteristic dierences between the
MFCs. First of all, the measurement principle is focus on measuring a temperature
dierence, between a measured temperature before and after a heating element, rather
than monitoring a power increase. If there is no mass ow, there will be no dierence
in temperature. However, if the mass ow rate is increased, the temperature before
the heating element will drop and after the element it will rise, see gure A.2. The
temperature dierence is direct proportional to the mass ow rate. The mass ow in the
EL-ow MFC is divided into a main ow, which is not measured and a by-pass ow,
which runs through the sensor. In this case, it is not necessary to heat up all the gas
running through the mass ow meter, which results in only a small temperature increase
of the medium. A last signicant dierence is the construction of the control valve. Since
the gas is owing to the plunger from all directions, rather than having one entry in case
of liquids, the plunger holder needs an extra support ring.
A.2 Construction of a mass ow controller
The construction of the mass ow meter is characterized by a sensor block and an
electronic module, which is attached on top of the sensor block. The mass ow sensor
is t in the sensor block and ttings on both sides of the block connect the uid
in- and outlet to the sensor. The resistance wires of the sensor are connected to
the electronic module, where the signal is processed. To supply power and extract
data from the electronics, a 9 pin D connector is included. For communication from
54
Figure A.2: Measurement principle of a EL-ow mass ow controller.
meter to meter, a RJ45 connection can be achieved using the applicable port and
a manual signal, using a button on top of the electronic module, can also be transmitted.
The control valve assembly, see also gure A.3, consists mainly of:
a coil,
a soft magnetic plunger holder,
an elastomer plunger,
a at linear spring,
shims,
an orice tube,
an orice holder,
an orice seal,
assembly nuts,
a purge plug,
several sleeves and support rings.
The plunger, the plunger holder, the linear spring and the shims form a separate as-
sembly. This assembly is critical for the performance of the control valve. Especially the
shims, small rings, which are available in two dierent thicknesses, play an important
role. They eectively adjust the control space of the plunger holder and so determine the
maximum ow rate possible. Too little shims will cause the valve to leak, too many shims
will block the plunger holder to move up or down and in that case, no ow is possible.
The typically control height is a quarter of the orice diameter. Once this assembly is
55
Figure A.3: The elements of a control valve assembly, in conguration applicable to the
CEM-module.
made and the valve is calibrated, the accuracy is xed. Every change in the plunger as-
sembly will aect the reliability of the measurement. The assembly is placed in between
the internal coil sleeve and a sleeve which holds the orice tube, where the outside of
the linear spring is clamped between the sleeves. Around the plunger assembly there is
space for the uid and can ow through the hollow coil sleeve up to a closure plug. This
plug can be used to purge the uid, which in case of liquids can help to extract trapped
gas bubbles. The whole module is xed on a mounting block using a special nut and is
sealed by a metal seal. To avoid leakages through this seal, in case the module has to be
56
disassembled, the nut requires a maximum limited torque of 30 Nm. The orice tube also
requires a critical seal. The seal is made of the same material as the plunger and needs
careful assembly, to avoid leakages. Provided that the plunger assembly is untouched,
the control valve can be disassembled and cleaned, without loosing accuracy.
A.3 Controlled evaporator mixer
The Controlled Evaporator Mixer (CEM) can mix a liquid with a gas, after which the
mixture is evaporated. This creates the possibility to produce a stable and controlled
vapor ow. The system is introduced as a successor of the bubbler systems. Such
a system uses a heated bowl of liquid and a certain gas ow which runs through
the uid. The liquid dissolves in the gas and ows out at the top of the bowl. This
system has a limit in stability and solubility of the gasses in the liquid, especially
when multi-component liquids are considered, like for example diesel fuels. In the
CEM module however, the liquid and the gas are initially mixed in a ow which
consists of small droplets of the liquid combined with the gas. After the mixing this
combined ow is led through a spiral. This spiral is cast in a lead block and this
block is externally heated. The melting properties of the lead constrain the maximum
temperature of the CEM, which is set at 210

C. For the near future the lead is replaced

by a zinc-aluminum alloy, due to the environmental constrains, but to ensure safety, the
maximum temperature is not increased (clixon protected). The spiral has a total length
of 500 mm and is winded up three times, through the heated block. The inner diam-
eter of the tube is 0.8 mm. The speed of the gas mixture in the spiral is equal to 1.5 m/s.
The mixing process is achieved by combining the control valve of the Liqui-ow and the
exit of the gas ow, coming from the mass ow controller, in one block, see gure A.4.
The construction control valve is slightly adjusted and a support ring is added to allow
the liquid to enter the valve. The gas ow is forced to ow in a ring around the exit of
the control valve. At the aperture of the valve, the gas is mixed with the liquid in a split
which has a height of somewhere between 0.15 - 0.25 mm, while the diameter of the
aperture is 0.1 mm. In this mixing process the liquid is cut in small droplets which are
captured by the gas ow and taken into the heated spiral, where the liquid is evaporated.
To avoid the chances of gas leaking in the liquid ow, the CEM module has to be placed
vertically. Since the control valve of the Liqui-ow is separated from the meter, it is
important to make the distance between the meter and the valve as short as possible,
to ensure reliable measurements. The dead volume between the meter and the valve
is an uncertainty of the system as a whole. Since low mass ows are considered, this
uncertainty might become a problem if the distance between the meter and the control
valve is too large. Another critical point is heat tracing. If the mixture is heated up in
the spiral and the liquid is evaporated, it is important to avoid cold spots, so cooling
by surfaces which have a lower temperature than the vapor. Especially the exit of the
CEM module is a critical point, since there is a certain space between the heated block
and the external assembly point. Keeping the distance between the assembly point and
the process, applying insulation or external heating is recommended.
57
Figure A.4: The lay-out of the CEM-module.
A.4 Calibration and measurement
The Liqui-ow MFC is either calibrated by water or by iso-2-propanol, depending on
the liquid considered for the measurement. Liquids other than water and iso-2-propanol
require a conversion factor to determine the actual mass ow. Therefore, once the mass
ow controller is calibrated, the signal from the mass ow sensor can be converted using
information of targeted liquid. This information consists of a table of conversion factors,
based on the physical properties of the liquid and is stored in the mass ow meter.
The EL-ow is calibrated for the process conditions of the actual gas. If there is no
58
calibration gas available or a dierent gas is measured with the same MFC, conversion
factors are available to correct the signal. These conversion factors can be found in
the FLUIDAT online database. The digital signal measured by the mass ow sensor
is processed, corrected and transferred to an analogue readout unit (E7000). In the
readout unit, the signal can be processed manually by a polynomial function, which
looks something like this:
Y = a +bX +cX
2
+dX
3
. (A.1)
Where Y is the measured signal from the mass ow meter, X is the corrected output
signal and a, b, c and d are factors which can be adapted. Through calibration a
standard deviation of 0, 8% of the measurement value plus 0, 2% of the full scale is
achievable. Though correction by a polynomial function a standard deviation of 0, 5%
of the measurement value plus 0, 1% of the full scale is achievable.
When starting the measurement system, it is important to rst apply the gas ow and
afterwards the liquid ow, to avoid the chances of liquids leaking into the gas system.
If the gas ow is applied, the evaporation temperature can be set to heat up the gas.
After the gas ow is heated up, the liquid ow can be applied. In the rst period of
time, the accuracy of the system is poor due to the dead volume of the liquid between
the meter and the control valve. So it is wise to run the evaporation system for a certain
period without doing a measurement. The control of the system parameters can be
adapted by adjusting the P-, I- or D-actions of the PID-controller. These adjustments
can be performed using the software on the PC, by changing the action parameters. If
necessary, an alarm can be triggered, to shut o the mass ow in case of an emergency.
59
Appendix B
Matlab scripts
B.1 Centerline height of the ame as function of the mass
ow
%%%%% The files solvez.m and besselzerosJ1.dat are required! %%%%%
clear all;
close all;
global R L Carbon Hydrogen Oxygen C1 C2 C0 i mu D T R0 Mf MN2 Xf
% Geometry of the burner:
R=25e-3; % Radius of the air tube [m]
L=2e-3; % Radius of the fuel tube [m]
% Fuel composition (e.g. C16H34, C11H10, C10H22 etc.):
Carbon=1; % Carbon atoms in fuel molecule
Hydrogen=4; % Hydrogen atoms in fuel molecule
Oxygen=0; % Oxygen atoms in fuel molecule
Mf=12*Carbon+1*Hydrogen+16*Oxygen; % [g/mol]
MN2=28; % [g/mol]
p = 1; % System pressure [bar]
T = 300; % Fuel temperature [K]
Tflame = 1000; % Flame temperature
R0 = 8.3145; % Universal gasconstant
% Initial molefractions [-]:
Xf = 1; % Fuel content of fuel stream
XO2 = 0.21; % Oxygen content of oxidizer stream
% Calculation of stoichiometric fraction (i, C0 and S):
i=Carbon+Hydrogen/4-Oxygen/2;
C1 = Xf;
60
C2 = XO2;
C0 = C1+C2./i;
S = i/(1/Xf *XO2); % Required for the solution of Roper
% Diffusion coefficient dependent on fuel, temperature and pressure [m2/s]
Mab = 2/(1/(Mf)+1/(MN2));
Sigmaf = 15.9*Carbon + 2.31*Hydrogen + 6.11*Oxygen; % Aromatic ring: -18.3;
SigmaN2 = 18.5;
D = 0.00143*(Tflame)^(1.75) / (p*sqrt(Mab)*(Sigmaf^(1/3) + SigmaN2^(1/3))^2) * 1e-4
Dfick = 0.00143*(T)^(1.75) / (p*sqrt(Mab)*(Sigmaf^(1/3) + SigmaN2^(1/3))^2) * 1e-4
Droper0 = 0.00143*(T)^(1.75) / (p*sqrt(Mab)*(Sigmaf^(1/3) + SigmaN2^(1/3))^2) * 1e-4
Droper = Droper0*(Tflame/T)^1.67
alpha=textread(besselzerosJ1.dat); % Solutions of BesselJ(mu,R)=0
mu=alpha./R;
Hguess = 0.05;
Vstart = 0.05;
Vend = 0.5;
NVstep = 40;
for k=1:(NVstep+1)
v = Vstart + (k-1).*(Vend-Vstart)./NVstep;
vcal = v*Tflame/T;
phi = v *pi*L^2 *60 *1000 *Xf; % [m/s]->[nl/min] CH4
PHIvol(k) = phi;
Hfick (k) = L^2*v/(2*Dfick); % Ficks law (v)
Hbs1(k) = fzero(@(z) solvez(v,z),Hguess); % Burke & Schumann solution using v
Hbs2(k) = fzero(@(z) solvez(vcal,z),Hguess); % Burke & Schumann solution using vcal
Hroper(k) = L^2*vcal* ( 4*Droper * log(1 + 1/S) )^-1; % Roper (vcal)
end
figure();
plot(PHIvol,Hfick,PHIvol,Hroper,-x,PHIvol,Hbs1,-.,PHIvol,Hbs2,--,linewidth,2)
legend(Ficks law,Roper,Burke & Schumann,Burke & Schumann corrected solution,2)
xlabel(Volume flow CH_4 [l_n/min],fontsize,11)
ylabel(flame height [m],fontsize,11)
title(Height of CH_4 flame (X_f = 1, T_f = 300, T_{flame} = 1000, D = 2e-4)
,fontsize,10,Fontweight,bold)
grid
B.2 Flame height and fuel mole fractions as function of
the mass ows
%%%%% The Burke and Schumann - model is adapted to derive %%%%%
%%%%% flame heights dependent on mass flowrates, fuel properties, %%%%%
%%%%% pressure and burner geometry, using the function fzero.m. %%%%%
61
%%%%% (The files solvez.m and besselzerosJ1.dat are required!) %%%%%
clear all;
close all;
global R L Carbon Hydrogen Oxygen C1 C2 C0 i mu D T R0 Mf MN2 Xf
% Geometry of the burner:
R=25e-3; % Radius of the air tube [m]
L=2e-3; % Radius of the fuel tube [m]
% Fuel composition (e.g. C16H34, C11H10, C10H22 etc.):
Carbon=16; % Carbon atoms in fuel molecule
Hydrogen=34; % Hydrogen atoms in fuel molecule
Oxygen=0; % Oxygen atoms in fuel molecule
% Calculation of fuel mole mass [g/mol]:
Mf=12*Carbon+1*Hydrogen+16*Oxygen;
MN2=28; % Mole mass N2
R0 = 8.3145; % Universal gasconstant
% Calculation of stoichiometric fraction (i):
i=Carbon+Hydrogen/4-Oxygen/2;
T = 473; % Temperature of the combustible gas mixture [K]
Tflame = 1200; % Temperature of the diffusion flame
% Initial concentrations:
p = 1; % System pressure [bar]
XO2 = 0.21; % [-] oxygen content of oxidizer stream
C2= XO2.*p/(R0*T); % Oxygen or air
% Diffusion coefficient dependent on fuel, temperature and pressure [m2/s]
Mab = 2/(1/Mf+1/MN2);
Sigmaf = 15.9*Carbon + 2.31*Hydrogen + 6.11*Oxygen; % Aromatic ring: -18.3;
SigmaN2 = 18.5;
D = 0.00143*(Tflame)^(1.75) / (p*sqrt(Mab)*(Sigmaf^(1/3) + SigmaN2^(1/3))^2) *1e-4
% Solutions of BesselJ(mu,R)=0:
alpha=textread(besselzerosJ1.dat);
mu=alpha./R;
% Calculate and plot flame height vs. mole fraction and combustible gas speed:
Hguess = 0.06;
Xfstart = 0.01/p;
Xfend = 0.1/p;
NXfstep = 30;
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Vstart = 0.01;
Vend = 0.10;
NVstep = 30;
for j=1:(NXfstep+1)
for k=1:(NVstep+1)
Xf = Xfstart + (j-1).*(Xfend-Xfstart)./NXfstep;
Xfinit(j) = Xf;
j
C1=Xf.*p/(R0*T);
C0=C1+C2./i;
v = (Vstart + (k-1).*(Vend-Vstart)./NVstep)*Tflame/T;
vinit(k) = v;
k
Hnew(j,k) = fzero(@(z) solvez(v,z),Hguess);
end
end
figure(2);
[J,l] = contour(Xfinit,vinit,Hnew);
set(l,ShowText,on,LevelList,[0.01 0.02 0.03 0.04 0.05 0.06 0.07 0.08 0.09])
xlabel(Molefraction fuel (X_f),fontsize,12,Fontweight,bold)
ylabel(Mixture velocity (v_m_i_x) [m/s],fontsize,12,Fontweight,bold)
title(Center height of the flame [m],fontsize,11,Fontweight,bold)
grid on
% Calculate and plot flame height and molefractions vs. mass flows [kg/s]
combustible gas and nitrogen:
Hguess = 0.05;
phifstart = 0.1e-7;
phifend = 1e-6;
Nphifstep = 20;
phiN2start = 0.1e-7;
phiN2end = 2.2e-6;
NphiN2step = 20;
for j=1:Nphifstep
for k=1:NphiN2step
phif(j) = phifstart + j.*(phifend-phifstart)./Nphifstep;
phiN2(k) = phiN2start + k.*(phiN2end-phiN2start)./NphiN2step;
Xf = MN2.*1e-3*phif(j)./(MN2.*1e-3*phif(j) + Mf.*1e-3*phiN2(k));
Xfinit(j,k) = Xf;
v = R0*T/(pi*L^2*p*1e5*MN2*1e-3*Mf*1e-3).*(MN2.*1e-3*phif(j)
+ Mf.*1e-3*phiN2(k))
vcal = v*Tflame/T;
j
k
C1=Xf.*p/(R0*T);
C0=C1+C2./i;
Hnew(j,k) = fzero(@(z) solvez(vcal,z),Hguess);
63
end
end
figure(3);
[A,x] = contour(phif,phiN2,Xfinit);
set(x,ShowText,on,LevelList,[0.01 0.02 0.03 0.04 0.05
0.06 0.07 0.08 0.09 0.1 0.15 0.2])
axis([0 1e-6 0 2e-6])
xlabel(Mass flow fuel (\phi_f) [kg/s],fontsize,12,Fontweight,bold)
ylabel(Mass flow nitrogen (\phi_N_2) [kg/s],fontsize,12,Fontweight,bold)
title(Centerline height of the flame [m],fontsize,12,Fontweight,bold)
colorbar
grid on
hold on
[B,h] = contour(phif,phiN2,Hnew);
clabel(B,h);
xlabel(Mass flow fuel (\phi_f) [kg/s],fontsize,12,Fontweight,bold)
ylabel(Mass flow nitrogen (\phi_N_2) [kg/s],fontsize,12,Fontweight,bold)
title(Centerline height of the flame [m],fontsize,12,Fontweight,bold)
grid on
hold off
B.3 Concentration fuel gas as function of the radius
%%%%% The files solvez.m and besselzerosJ1.dat are required! %%%%%
clear all;
close all;
% Geometry of the burner:
R=25e-3; % Radius of the air tube [m]
L=2e-3; % Radius of the fuel tube [m]
z_max=0.01; % Expected maximum height of the flame [m]
% Fuel composition (e.g. C16H34, C11H10, C10H22 etc.):
Carbon=16; % Carbon atoms in fuel molecule
Hydrogen=34; % Hydrogen atoms in fuel molecule
Oxygen=0; % Oxygen atoms in fuel molecule
% Mole mass:
Mf=12*Carbon+1*Hydrogen+16*Oxygen; % Mole mass Fuel [g/mol]
MN2=28; % Mole mass N2 [g/mol]
R0 = 8.3145; % Universal gasconstant
64
T = 300 % Temperature of the combustible gas mixture [K]
Tflame=1675 % Temperature of the diffusion flame
% Calculation of stoichiometric fraction (i):
i=Carbon+Hydrogen/4-Oxygen/2;
% Initial concentrations:
p = 1 % System pressure [bar]
pf = 0.075 % Maximum partial pressure of the fuel (required for evaporation)
Xf = pf/p % Fuel content of fuel/nitrogen stream [-]
XO2 = 0.21; % Oxygen content of oxidizer stream [-]
C1 = Xf.*p/(R0*T);
C2 = XO2.*p/(R0*T);
C0 = C1+C2./i;
% Diffusion coefficient dependent on fuel, temperature and pressure [m2/s]
Mab = 2/(1/(Mf)+1/(MN2));
Sigmaf = 15.9*Carbon + 2.31*Hydrogen + 6.11*Oxygen; % Aromatic ring: -18.3;
SigmaN2 = 18.5;
D = 0.00143*(Tflame)^(1.75) / (p*sqrt(Mab)*(Sigmaf^(1/3) + SigmaN2^(1/3))^2) * 1e-4
% Flow calculations:
% Mass flow combustible gas/nitrogen mixture [kg/s]
phi=2e-6
% Density combustible gas/nitrogen mixture [kg/m3]
rho_mix=p*1e5/(R0*T)*(Xf*Mf*1e-3+(1-Xf)*MN2*1e-3);
v=phi/(rho_mix*pi*L^2) % Gas velocity [m/s]
vcal = v*Tflame/T
alpha=textread(besselzerosJ1.dat); % Solutions of BesselJ(mu,R)=0
mu=alpha./R;
intervalr=25; % Interval of radius
intervalz=50; % Interval of height
E=[];
F=[];
Z=[];
for r=0:R/(5*(intervalr-1)):R/5,
C=[];
for z=0:z_max/(intervalz-1):z_max,
c=C0*L^2/R^2-C2/i+2*L*C0/R^2*sum(((1./mu).*besselj(1,mu.*L).
*besselj(0,mu.*r))./((besselj(0,mu.*R)).^2).*exp(-D.*mu.^2.*z/v));
if c <= 0
c = 0;
elseif c > 0
c = 1./c;
65
end
C=[C c];
Z=[Z z];
end
E=[C ; E];
F=[F ; C];
end
IMG = [E F];
X=-0.005:R/(5*intervalr):0.005;
figure();
image(X,Z,IMG,CDataMapping,scaled)
set(gca,YDir,normal)
caxis([0 1e6])
xlabel(Burner radius [m],fontsize,10,Fontweight,bold)
ylabel(Flame height [m],fontsize,10,Fontweight,bold)
title(Concentration (C) of combustible gas,fontsize,10,Fontweight
,bold)
colorbar
colormap(jet)
grid
% Calculation of mass and volume flows:
M_mean=Xf*Mf*1e-3+(1-Xf)*MN2*1e-3;
Massfraction_f=Xf*Mf*1e-3/M_mean;
Massflow_fuel=Massfraction_f*phi*1e3*3600; % [g/h]
rho_N2=p*MN2*1e-3/(R0*293); % Density of Nitrogen
Massfraction_N2=1-Massfraction_f;
Volumeflow_N2=Massfraction_N2*phi*1e3*60/rho_N2; % [l/min]
% Volume flow air [l/min]:
Air = v.*pi*(R^2-L^2)*60*1000
B.4 solvez.m
function c = solvez(v,z);
global R L C1 C2 C0 i mu D
c = C0*L^2/R^2-C2/i+2*L*C0/R^2*sum(((1./mu).*besselj(1,mu.*L)).
/((besselj(0,mu.*R)).^2).*exp(-D.*mu.^2.*z./v));
66
Appendix C
Drawings of the high pressure
burner
67