Fuel premixed

Flame Types and Their Characteristics. There are two main types of flames diffusion and premixed. In diffusion flames, the fuel and oxidant are separately introduced and the rate of the overall process is determined by the mixing rate. Examples of diffusion flames include the flames associated with candles, matches, gaseous fuel jets, oil sprays, and large fires, whether accidental or otherwise. In premixed flames, fuel and oxidant are mixed thoroughly prior to combustion. A fundamental understanding of both flame types and their stmcture involves the determination of the dimensions of the various zones in the flame and the temperature, velocity, and species concentrations throughout the system. 

Most of the commercial gas—air premixed burners are basically laminar-dow Bunsen burners and operate at atmospheric pressure. This means that the primary air is induced from the atmosphere by the fuel dow with which it mixes in the burner passage leading to the burner ports, where the mixture is ignited and the dame stabilized. The induced air dow is determined by the fuel dow through momentum exchange and by the position of a shutter or throtde at the air inlet. Hence, the air dow is a function of the fuel velocity as it issues from the orifice or nozzle, or of the fuel supply pressure at the orifice. With a fixed fuel dow rate, the equivalence ratio is adjusted by the shutter, and the resulting induced air dow also determines the total mixture dow rate. 

It is often desired to substitute directiy a more readily available fuel for the gas for which a premixed burner or torch and its associated feed system were designed. Satisfactory behavior with respect to dashback, blowoff, and heating capabiHty, or the local enthalpy dux to the work, generally requires reproduction as neady as possible of the maximum temperature and velocity of the burned gas, and of the shape or height of the dame cone. Often this must be done precisely, and with no changes in orifices or adjustments in the feed system. 

NO Emission Control It is preferable to minimize NO formation through control of the mixing, combustion, and heat-transfer processes rather than through postcombustion techniques such as selective catalytic reduction. Four techniques for doing so, illustrated in Fig. 27-15, are air staging, fuel staging, flue-gas recirculation, and lean premixing. 

Surface combustion devices are designed for fully premixing the gaseous fuel and air and burning it on a porous radiant surface. The close coupling of the combustion process with the burner surface results in low flame temperatures and, consequently, low NO formation. Surface materials can include ceramic fibers, reticulated ceramics, and metal alloy mats. This approach allows the burner shape to be customized to match the heat transfer profile with the application. 

Partially Premixed Burners These burners have a premixing section in which a mixture that is flammable but overall fuel-rich is generated. Secondary combustion air is then supplied around the flame holder. The fuel gas may be used to aspirate the combustion air or vice versa, the former being the commoner. Examples of both are provided in Figs. 27-33 and 27-34. 

The gas turbine eombustors have seen eonsiderable ehange in their design as most new turbines have progressed to Dry Low Emission NOx Combustors from the wet eombustors, whieh were injeeted by steam in the primary zone of the eombustor. The DLE approaeh is to burn most (at least 75%) of the fuel at eool, fuel-lean eonditions to avoid any signifieant produetion of NOx. The prineipal features of sueh a eombustion system is the premixing of... 

Figure 10-23 shows a sehematie eomparison of a typieal dry low emission NOx eombustor and eonventional eombustors. In both eases, a swirler is used to ereate the required flow eonditions in the eombustion ehamber to stabilize the flame. The DLE fuel injeetor is mueh larger beeause it eontains the fuel/air premixing ehamber and the quantity of air being mixed is large, approximately 50-60% of the eombustion air flow. 

DEE eombustors have pre-mix modules on the head of the eombustor to mix the fuel uniformly with air. To avoid auto-ignition, the residenee time of the fuel in the premix tube must be less than the auto-ignition delay time of the fuel. If auto-ignition does oeeur in the pre-mix module then it is probable that the resulting damage will require repair and/or replaeement of parts before the engine is run again at full load. 

The major mechanism of a vapor cloud explosion, the feedback in the interaction of combustion, flow, and turbulence, can be readily found in this mathematical model. The combustion rate, which is primarily determined by the turbulence properties, is a source term in the conservation equation for the fuel-mass fraction. The attendant energy release results in a distribution of internal energy which is described by the equation for conservation of energy. This internal energy distribution is translated into a pressure field which drives the flow field through momentum equations. The flow field acts as source term in the turbulence model, which results in a turbulent-flow structure. Finally, the turbulence properties, together with the composition, determine the rate of combustion. This completes the circle, the feedback in the process of turbulent, premixed combustion in gas explosions. The set of equations has been solved with various numerical methods e.g., SIMPLE (Patankar 1980) SOLA-ICE (Cloutman et al. 1976). 

Blast scale was determined by use of dispersion calculations to estimate fuel quantity within flammability limits present in the cloud. Initial blast strength was determined by factors which have been found to be major factors affecting the process of turbulent, premixed combustion, for example, the fuel s nature and the existence within the cloud of partial confinement or obstacles. 

Combustion behavior differed in some respects between continuous and instantaneous spills, and also between LNG and refrigerated liquid propane. For continuous spills, a short period of premixed burning occurred immediately after ignition. This was characterized by a weakly luminous flame, and was followed by combustion of the fuel-rich portions of the plume, which burned with a rather low, bright yellow flame. Hame height increased markedly as soon as the fire burned back to the liquid pool at the spill point, and assumed the tilted, cylindrical shape that is characteristic of a pool fire. 

Similar behavior was observed for LNG clouds during both continuous and instantaneous tests, but average flame speeds were lower the maximum speed observed in any of the tests was 10 m/s. Following premixed combustion, the flame burned through the fuel-rich portion of the cloud. This stage of combustion was more evident for continuous spills, where the rate of flame propagation, particularly for LNG spills, was very low. In one of the continuous LNG tests, a wind speed of only 4.5 m/s was sufficient to hold the flame stationary at a point some 65 m from the spill point for almost 1 minute the spill rate was then reduced. 

Figure 5.3 shows a moment of flame propagation in an unconfined propane cloud. On the left side, a flame is propagating through a premixed portion of the cloud its flame is characteristically weakly luminous. In the middle of the photograph, fuel-rich portions of the cloud are burning with characteristically higher flames in a more-or-less cylindrical, somewhat tilted, flame shape. 

A fireball s radiation hazard can be assessed by two factors its diameter (either as a function of time or original amount of fuel) and combustion duration. Fireball models presented by Lihou and Maund (1982), Roberts (1982), and others start with a hypothetical, premixed sphere of fuel and air (in some cases, oxidant) at ambient temperature. Because the molar volume of any gas at standard conditions... 

Premixed Flame. For this type of flame, the fuel and oxidizer—both gases—arc mixed together before flowing to the flame zone (the thin region of the flame). A typical example is the inner core of a Bunsen burner (Figure 1), or combustion in an auto-... 

Liquid Pool Flames. Liquid fuel or flammable spills often lead to fires involving a flame at the surface of the liquid. This type of diffusion flame moves across the surface of the liquid driven by evaporation of the fuel through heat transfer ahead of the flame. If the liquid pool or spill is formed at ambient conditions sufficient to vaporize enough fuel to form a flammable air/fuel mixture, then a flame can propagate through the mixture above the spill as a premixed flame. 

Among the various selection considerations are specific combustion characteristics of different fuels. One of the combustion characteristics of gaseous fuels is their flammability limit. The flammability limit refers to the mixture proportions of fuel and air that will sustain a premixed flame when there is either limited or excess air available. If there is a large amount of fuel mixed with a small amount of air, then there is a limiting ratio of fuel to air at which the mixture will no longer sustain a flame. This limit is called the rich flammability limit. If there is a small amount of fuel mixed with excess air, then there is a limiting ratio of the two at which the flame will not propagate.This limit is called the lean flammability limit. Different fuels have different flammability limits and these must be identified for each fuel. 

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