Plasma Sustaining of Combustion in Low-Speed Gas Flows

Non-equilibrium plasma has proven to be effective in sustaining combustion in low-speed (3-100 m/s) turbulent or laminar atmospheric-pressure gas flows, which are employed in industrial burners. For example, the application of pulsed nanosecond DBD allows doubling of the blow-off velocity of the premixed propane-air flame (Anikin etal., 2003). The required discharge power in this case is less than 1% with respect to the burner power. The application of pulsed nanosecond DBD also allows for burning of lean propane-air mixtnies withont flame deceleration. A schematic of the nanosecond DBD system for snstaining a flame is shown in Fig. 11-5. Voltage pulses (12.5 kV in the cable, 25 kV on the electrode) ate provided in the system with repetition frequency 1.2 kHz and duration 75 ns. Flow velocity in the burner is a few meters per second. The blow-off velocities of the premixed propane-air flame are summarized in Fig. 11-6 as a function of the equivalence ratio of the mixture with and without application of plasma at different polarities and pulsation regimes (Anikin et al.. 

The figure demonstrates the effect of doubling the blow-off velocity by appUcation of the strongly non-equilibrium nanosecond DBD. Similar results on the plasma stabilization of the premixed lean propane-air flames have been obtained by Galley et al. (2005) also using a nanosecond pulsed discharge but without a dielectric barrier. 

Kinetic Features of Plasma-Assisted Ignition and Combustion 

Combined Non-Thermal/Quasi-Thermal Mechanism of Flame Ignition and Stabilization Zebra Ignition and Application of Non-Equilibrium Magnetic Gliding Arc Discharges 

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