Thesis (M.S.)--Oregon State University, 2010. / Printout. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 107-110). Also available on the World Wide Web.

This research's objective is to investigate the reactions of hydrogen enrichment of methane combustions, and to study the flame stabilization location and the production of emissions. The main parameter the investigation focuses on is the flame stabilization found through chemiluminescence. The testing will be conducted at different ratios of hydrogen to methane, and then also testing the different mixtures at various levels of air to fuel. The hydrogen/methane mixture entering the flow can be set to three modes of fully premixed, non-mixed, or partially mixed depending on the orientation of the gas injector. This will show the correlation of the addition of hydrogen to the changes of ignition location, flame stabilization, adiabatic flame temperature, and emissions; all characteristics that will be analyzed by the experiment.

La combustion sans flamme est un régime de combustion massivement dilué associant forte efficacité énergétique et très faibles émissions polluantes dans les fours industriels. La composition du combustible et la température des parois de la chambre de combustion sont deux paramètres très influents de ce régime. Dans de précédents travaux menés au CORIA, l’étude du régime de combustion sans flamme des mélanges méthane-hydrogène à 18% d’excès d’air a mené à des résultats originaux et prometteurs. D’autre part, la haute température des parois s’est avérée un élément primordial pour la stabilisation de la combustion sans flamme. Dans le cadre du projet CANOE en collaboration avec GDF SUEZ et l’ADEME, cette thèse a pour objectif, d’une part de compléter l’étude de l’extension de ce régime à des mélanges méthane-hydrogène pour des conditions opératoires plus proches des conditions classiques de fonctionnement de brûleurs (10% d’excès d’air), et d’autre part, d'étudier les problèmes de stabilité de la combustion sans flamme en environnement à basse température pour envisager son application à des configurations de type chaudière industrielle.Sur le four pilote à hautes températures de parois du CORIA, l’ajout de l’hydrogène dans le combustible a permis de garder le régime de combustion sans flamme pour toutes les proportions méthane - hydrogène avec très peu d’émissions polluantes. Une augmentation de l’excès d’air est toutefois nécessaire pour certaines conditions opératoires. Les expériences réalisées avec abaissement progressif de la température des parois ont permis d’étudier l’influence de celle-ci sur le développement de la combustion sans flamme, et d’atteindre les limites de stabilité de ce régime. Des résultats similaires sont obtenus sur une installation semi-industrielle de GDF SUEZ. L’ajout d’hydrogène rend la combustion sans flamme moins sensible à l’abaissement de la température de parois. Une étude analytique de jets turbulents confinés a été développée pour représenter l'interaction entre les jets de réactifs et leur environnement dans la chambre de combustion permettant d'atteindre le régime de combustion sans flamme par entraînement, dilution et préchauffage. Ce modèle nous a permis d’établir une étude systématique permettant de mettre en valeur l’effet de chaque paramètre sur le développement des jets dans l’enceinte, et ainsi servir de moyen de pré-dimensionnement de brûleur à combustion sans flamme. L'apport de chaleur nécessaire à la stabilisation à basse température a ainsi été estimé. Sur cette base, un brûleur adapté aux configurations à parois froides a été dimensionné et fabriqué. L’applicabilité de la combustion sans flamme avec ce brûleur dans une chambre de combustion à parois froides, spécialement conçue et fabriquée dans cet objectif au cours de cette thèse, a été étudiée. Un régime de combustion diluée à basses températures a pu être stabilisé, mais le fort taux d'imbrûlés produits en sortie reste à réduire. / Mild flameless combustion is a massively diluted combustion regime associating high energy efficiency and very low pollutant emissions from industrial furnaces. The fuel composition and walls temperature are two very influential parameters of this combustion regime. In previous works realized at CORIA, flameless combustion of methane - hydrogen mixtures at 18% of excess air has shown very promising results. In another hand, high walls temperature is an essential element for flameless combustion stabilization. Within the framework of the project CANOE in collaboration with GDF SUEZ and ADEME, the objective of this PhD thesis is to complete the study of flameless combustion for methane-hydrogen mixtures in operating conditions similar to classical operating conditions of burners (10% of excess air), and in another hand, to study the stability limits of this combustion regime in low temperature environment like in industrial boiler.Experiments realized on the CORIA high temperature pilot facility, have proved that hydrogen addition in the fuel keep flameless combustion regime stable for all methane - hydrogen proportions, with very ultra-low pollutant emissions. An increase of excess air is however necessary for some operating conditions.Experiments realized with wall temperature progressive decrease allowed to study the influence of this parameter on flameless combustion, and to reach its stability limits. Similar results are obtained on the semi-industrial facility of GDF SUEZ. With hydrogen addition, flameless combustion is less sensitive to wall temperature decrease. An analytical representation of confined turbulent jets has been then developed to represent interaction between the reactant jets and their environment in the combustion chamber allowing reaching fameless combustion regime by entrainment, dilution and preheating. The effect of each parameter on the development of the jets can be then studied, which can be used as convenient tool of flameless combustion burners design. The heat quantity necessary for the low wall temperature stabilization has been quantified. On this base, a burner adapted to the configurations with cold walls has been designed. The applicability of the flameless combustion with this burner has been studied in a combustion chamber with low wall temperature specially designed for this purpose during this thesis. A mild diluted combustion regime has been achieved, but the high levels of unburnt gases have to be reduced.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / A chemically reactive turbulent traversing hot-jet issued from a pre-chamber to a relatively long combustion chamber is experimentally investigated. The long combustion chamber represents a single channel of a wave rotor constant-volume combustor. The issued jet ignites the fuel-air mixture in the combustion chamber. Fuel-air mixtures are prepared with different hydrocarbon fuels of different reactivity, namely, methane, propane, methane-hydrogen blend, methane-propane blend and methane-argon blend. The jet acts as a rapid, distributed and moving source of ignition, traversing across one end of the long combustion chamber entrance, induces complex flow structures such as a train of counter rotating vortices that enhance turbulent mixing. In general, a stationary hot-jet ignition process lack these structures due to absence of the traversing motion. The ignition delay of the fuels and fuel blends are measured in order to obtain insights about constant-volume pressure-gain combustion process initiated by a moving source of ignition and also to glean useful data about design and operation of a wave rotor combustor. Reactive hot-jets are useful to ignite fuel-air mixtures in internal combustion engines and novel wave rotor combustors. A reactive hot-jet or puff of gas issued from a suitably designed pre-chamber can act as rapid, distributed and less polluting ignition source in internal combustion engines. Each cylinder of the engine is provided with its own pre-chamber. A wave rotor combustor has an array of circumferentially arranged channels on a rotating drum. Each channel acts as a constant-volume combustor and produces high pressure combustion products. Implementation of hot-jet igniter in a wave rotor combustor offers utilization of available high temperature and high pressure reactive combustion products residing in each of the wave rotor channels as a distributed source of ignition for other channels, thus requiring no special pre-chamber in ultimate implementation. Such reactive products or partially combusted and radical-laden gases can be issued from one or more channels to ignite the fuel-air mixture residing in another channel. Due to the rotation of the rotor channels, the issued hot-jet would have relative motion with respect to one end of the channels and traverse across it. This thesis aims to investigate the effects of jet traverse time experimentally on ignition delay along with other important factors that affect the hot-jet ignition process such as fuel reactivity, fuel-air mixture preparation quality and stratification and equivalence ratio. In this study, the traversing motion of the hot-jet at one end of the main combustion chamber is implemented by keeping the main combustion chamber stationary and rotating a pre-chamber at speeds of 400 RPM, 800 RPM and 1200 RPM. The rotational speeds correspond to jet traverse times of 16.9 ms, 8.4 ms and 5.6 ms respectively. The fuel-air mixture inside the channel is at room temperature and pressure initially and its equivalence ratio is varied from 0.4 to 1.3. The cylindrical pre-chamber is initially filled with a 50%-50% methane-hydrogen blend fuel and air mixture at room pressure and temperature and at an equivalence ratio of 1.1. These conditions were chosen based on prior evidence of ignition rapidity with the jet properties. The hot-jet is issued by rupturing a thin diaphragm isolating the chambers. Using high frequency dynamic pressure transducer pressure histories, the diaphragm rupture moment and onset of ignition is measured. Pressure traces from two transducers are employed to measure the initial rupture shock speed and ignition delay. Schlieren images recorded by a high speed camera are used to identify ignition moment and validate the measured ignition delay times. Ignition delay is defined as time interval from the rupture moment to onset of ignition of fuel-air mixture in the main combustion chamber. The ignition system is designed to produce diaphragm rupture at almost exactly the moment when jet traverse begins. Ignition delay times are measured for methane, propane, methane-hydrogen blends, methane-propane blend and methane-argon blend. The equivalence ratio of the fuel-air mixtures varied from 0.4 to 1.3 in steps of 0.1 for stationary-hot jet ignition experiments and in steps of 0.3 for traversing hot-jet ignition experiments. Hot-jet ignition delay of fuel-air mixtures, for both stationary hot-jet ignition process and traversing hot-jet ignition process, generally increased with increasing equivalence ratio. For stationary hot-jet ignition delay, the minimum ignition delay occurs between Ф = 0.4 to Ф = 0.6 for the tested fuel-air mixtures. Both stationary and traversing hot-jet ignition delay depended on fuel reactivity. In particular, the shortest ignition delay times were observed for a fuel blend containing hydrogen. Among pure fuels propane exhibited slightly shorter ignition delay times, on average, compared to pure methane fuel. The addition of argon to pure methane, intended to control fuel density and buoyancy, increased the ignition delay. The traversing hot-jet ignition delay generally increased with increasing jet traverse times. To explain the variations in the measured hot-jet ignition delay and investigate qualitatively the effect of buoyancy on flame propagation and mixture stratification, the fuel-air mixture inside the main combustion chamber was ignited using a spark plug to generate a propagating laminar flame. The laminar flame propagated within the flammable regions of the channel in ways that sensitively reveal variations in local fuel-air mixture equivalence ratio. Flame luminosity images from a high speed camera and schlieren images revealed the fuel-air mixture being highly stratified depending on the density difference between the fuel and air and provided mixing time (0 s, 10s ,30s for most fuels). The lack of buoyancy-driven spreading caused the fuel to remain in the vicinity of the fuel injector resulting in significant longitudinal stratification of the fuel-air mixture. Lighter fuels stratified to the top of the chambers and heavier fuel stratified to the bottom of the chamber. Increasing the mixing time, which is defined as the time interval from end of fuel injection into the chamber to the triggering of the spark plug, improved the buoyancy-driven spreading and extended the flammable region as evidenced by the schlieren and flame luminosity images. The maximum pressure developed in the combustor for the three ignition processes, namely, stationary hot-jet ignition, traversing hot-jet ignition and spark ignition process in laminar flame propagation experiments were compared. Stationary hot-jet ignition process generally exhibited the highest pressure being developed in the chamber. Variations in heat loss, fuel-air mixture leakage and mass addition mechanisms reduced the maximum pressure for spark ignition and traversing hot-jet ignition process.

The objective of this study is to determine hydrate formation conditions of methane- hydrogen sulfide mixtures. During the study, an experimental work is carried out by using a system that contains a high-pressure hydrate formation cell and pressure-temperature data is recorded in each experiment. Different H2S concentrations and both brine and distilled water are used in the experiments and the Black Sea conditions, which are suitable for methane-hydrogen sulfide hydrate formation are examined. Considering the pressure-temperature data obtained, hydrate equilibrium conditions are determined as well as the number of moles of free gas in the hydrate formation cell. The change in the number of moles of free gas in the hydrate formation cell with respect to time is considered as a way of determining rate of hydrate formation. Effects of H2S concentration and salinity on hydrate formation conditions of methane-hydrogen sulfide mixtures are also studied. It is observed that an increase in the salinity shifts the methane-hydrogen sulfide hydrate equilibrium condition to lower equilibrium temperatures at a given pressure. On the other hand, with an increase in H2S concentration the methane hydrogen sulfide hydrate formation conditions reach higher equilibrium temperature values at a given pressure. After the study, it can be also concluded that the Black Sea has suitable conditions for hydrate formation of methane hydrogen sulfide mixtures, considering the results of the experiments.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / Investigations of a constant-volume combustor ignited by a penetrating transient jet (a puff) of hot reactive gas have been conducted in order to provide vital data for designing wave rotor combustors. In a wave rotor combustor, a cylindrical drum with an array of channels arranged around the axis spins at a high rpm to generate high-temperature and high-pressure product gas. The hot-gas jet ignition method has been employed to initiate combustion in the channels. This study aims at experimentally investigating the ignition delay time of a premixed combustible mixture in a rectangular, constant-volume chamber, representing one channel of the wave rotor drum. The ignition process may be influenced by the multiple factors: the equivalence ratio, temperature, and the composition of the fuel mixture, the temperature and composition of the jet gas, and the peak mass flow rate of the jet (which depends on diaphragm rupture pressure). In this study, the main mixture is at room temperature. The jet composition and temperature are determined by its source in a pre-chamber with a hydrogen-methane mixture with an equivalent ratio of 1.1, and a fuel mixture ratio of 50:50 (CH4:H2 by volume). The rupture pressure of a diaphragm in the pre-chamber, which is related to the mass flow rate and temperature of the hot jet, can be controlled by varying the number of indentations in the diaphragm. The main chamber composition is varied, with the use of four equivalence ratios (1.0, 0.8, 0.6, and 0.4) and two fuel mixture ratios (50:50, and 30:70 of CH4:H2 by volume). The sudden start of the jet upon rupture of the diaphragm causes a shock wave that precedes the jet and travels along the channel and back after reflection. The shock strength has an important role in fast ignition since the pressure and the temperature are increased after the shock. The reflected shock pressure was examined in order to check the variation of the shock strength. However, it is revealed that the shock strength becomes attenuated compared with the theoretical pressure of the reflected shock. The gap between theoretical and measured pressures increases with the increase of the Mach number of the initial shock. Ignition delay times are obtained using pressure records from two dynamic pressure transducers installed on the main chamber, as well as high-speed videography using flame incandescence and Schileren imaging. The ignition delay time is defined in this research as the time interval from the diaphragm rupture moment to the ignition moment of the air/fuel mixture in the main chamber. Previous researchers used the averaged ignition delay time because the diaphragm rupture moment is elusive considering the structure of the chamber. In this research, the diaphragm rupture moment is estimated based on the initial shock speed and the longitudinal length of the main chamber, and validated with the high-speed video images such that the error between the estimation time and the measured time is within 0.5%. Ignition delay times decrease with an increase in the amount of hydrogen in the fuel mixture, the amount of mass of the hot-jet gases from the pre-chamber, and with a decrease in the equivalence ratio. A Schlieren system has been established to visualize the characteristics of the shock wave, and the flame front. Schlieren photography shows the density gradient of a subject with sharp contrast, including steep density gradients, such as the flame edge and the shock wave. The flame propagation, gas oscillation, and the shock wave speed are measured using the Schlieren system. An image processing code using MATLAB has been developed for measuring the flame front movement from Schlieren images. The trend of the maximum pressure in the main chamber with respect to the equivalence ratio and the fuel mixture ratio describes that the equivalence ratio 0.8 shows the highest maximum pressure, and the fuel ratio 50:50 condition reveals lower maximum pressure in the main chamber than the 30:70 condition. After the combustion occurs, the frequency of the pressure oscillation by the traversing pressure wave increases compared to the frequency before ignition, showing a similar trend with the maximum pressure in the chamber. The frequency is the fastest at the equivalence ratio of 0.8, and the slowest at a ratio of 0.4. The fuel ratio 30:70 cases show slightly faster frequencies than 50:50 cases. Two different combustion behaviors, fast and slow combustion, are observed, and respective characteristics are discussed. The frequency of the flame front oscillation well matches with that of the pressure oscillation, and it seems that the pressure waves drive the flame fronts considering the pressure oscillation frequency is somewhat faster. Lastly, a feedback mechanism between the shock and the flame is suggested to explain the fast combustion in a constant volume chamber with the shock-flame interactions.