Sustainable and low emission combustion requires new combustion paradigms and solutions to increase efficiency, comply with more stringent regulations on pollutants, and cope with the varying qualities of renewable fuels. Plasma Assisted Combustion (PAC) could be one of the tools to achieve these goals in practical combustion systems. Previous studies showed that PAC can be used in a variety of applications: to improve ignition in difficult environments, to extend the operating range of burners to leaner conditions, to contrast thermoacoustic instability, to allow flame-holding in extreme conditions, and more. While applications keep being proposed, there are efforts to model and understand the coupling between flames and plasma discharges. This work contributes to the unraveling of the action of plasma discharges on flames by performing a number of investigations on a simple PAC burner. Trends and temporal evolution of key chemical species and electric fields are measured during plasma actuation of the flame. Experimental datasets resulting from this work are meant to be used in cross-validating numerical simulations. The considered PAC burner generates a lean methane-air stagnation flame, across which discharges are applied, developing partially in the fresh and partially in the burned gases. Time-resolved 2D imaging of atomic hydrogen and oxygen is obtained by using two-photon absorption planar laser induced fluorescence (TALIF) while OH and CH radicals are measured by using planar laser induced fluorescence (PLIF). To measure the electric field, the Electric Field Induced Second Harmonic generation (EFISH) technique is used. A novel deconvolution-like post-processing procedure is proposed and used to calibrate the measurements and improve the spatial resolution, overcoming limitations and distortions typical of EFISH measurements. Presented results quantify the effect of the plasma actuation on the flame and lend themselves to the validation of numerical models.

Nonthermal plasma-assisted combustion (PAC) has been demonstrated to be a promising potential method to enhance combustion performance and reduce the pollutant emissions. To better understand the mechanism in PAC, we have conducted a series of studies on the combustion enhancement by plasma using a home-developed PAC platform which employs a nonthermal microwave argon plasma and a suit of optical diagnostic tools including optical imaging, optical emission spectroscopy, and cavity ringdown spectroscopy. A new PAC system in which a continuous atmospheric argon microwave plasma jet is employed to enhance combustion of methane/air mixtures was reported. Reactive species in PAC were characterized in a state-resolved manner including the simultaneously measurements of OH(A) and OH(X) radicals in the PAC flames. Roles of the state-resolved OH(A) and OH(X) radicals in microwave PAC of premixed methane/air mixture were explored. It was concluded that if both OH(A) and OH(X) radicals assisted the ignition and flame stabilization processes, then we may hypothesize that the role of OH(A) was more dominant in the ignition enhancement but the role of OH(X) was more dominant in the flame stabilization. The effect of fuel injection configurations was investigated in the comparative study between PAC of the premixed and nonpremixed methane/air mixtures. It was found that emissions from the CH (A-X) and C2 Swan systems only exist in the nonpremixed PAC which suggest that the reaction pathways are different between premixed and nonpremixed PAC. The PAC of premixed methane/oxygen/argon mixtures was investigated. A U-shaped dual-layer curve of fuel ignition/flame stabilization limit showing the effects of the plasma power on the fuel ignition and flame stabilization was observed and reported. A parametric study of the microwave PAC of the premixed ethylene/air mixtures was conducted. Behavior of the OH, CH, and C2 radicals and their dependence on plasma power, argon flow rate, and total ethylene/air mixture flow rate were also studied.

An atmospheric pressure swirl-stabilized methane-air burner has been developed as a test platform for nanosecond repetitively pulsed (NRP) discharge plasma-assisted combustion research. Qualitative flame and plasma discharge characterizations were conducted with high-speed video and low-light ICCD imagery, along with a modal acoustic analysis of the entire assembly. A large eddy simulation (LES) of the burner was created using the commercial solver Ansys Fluent to investigate the plasma effects on swirl-stabilized turbulent combustion. A modified version of the solver's premixed combustion mechanism is presented along with a phenomenological plasma discharge model to simulate plasma-assisted combustion. Cold flow particle image velocimetry (PIV) data were collected to validate the non-reacting flow field and assess non-reacting NRP discharge effects. Optical emission spectroscopy (OES) measurements of the second positive system (SPS) of nitrogen mapped temperature characteristics of NRP discharge bursts for comparison to time-resolved simulation data. Finally, time-averaged CH* chemiluminescence data were collected to qualitatively assess the effects of plasma on the experimental burner and simulated flame structure. Overall, the phenomenologically-based combustion mechanism proposed in this work shows good agreement with several experimental observations and provides a promising framework for future plasma-assisted combustion modeling.

The thesis focus on simulating one-dimensional flame subjected to a microwave and nanosecond pulse. We modified open-source codes Cantera and Ember to perform one-dimensional flame simulations for steady and unsteady state, respectively. Our model is computationally efficient to perform simulations in a range of parameters such as electric field strength, flow strain rate, and pulse repetitive frequency. Our model for the one-dimensional flame subjected to a microwave predicted flame speed enhancement more accurately than the previous studies. <br>

No description available.

No description available.

Since being discovered, combustion of fuels, especially fossil fuels in the last centuries, has been the dominant source of energy for human life. However, over the years, the adverse effects and shortcomings caused by the vast utilization of these energy sources have been observed; the three most important of which are unreliable resources, unfavorable natural outcomes, and limited performance. Using biofuels is one of the well-established proposed solutions to the scarcity and environmental issues of fossils as they are sustainable sources of energy with acceptable and even superior combustion characteristics. As a second-generation biofuel, anisole has shown promising results with high flame speed and high knock resistance. Therefore, the first chapter of this thesis is focused on experimental investigation of anisole laminar burning speed and stability properties so that it can be used as a benchmark for future kinetic mechanism validations. Stability is another important parameter in combustion systems, especially in diffusion jet flame combustion as used in many applications like thrusters or burners. Different methods are applied to improve the stability of such diffusion flames in propulsion systems, e.g., changing geometrical or flow characteristics of the burner. Most of these efforts have not been practically successful, due to the cost and compatibility issues. Another technique which minimizes such problems is to use electron impact excitation, dissociation and ionization and generate highly concentrated charged/excited species and active radicals. These methods include microwave, dielectric barrier, and repetitive nanosecond pulsed (RNP) discharge and the latter has shown promising results as one of the most effective low-temperature plasma (LTP) methods. In chapters 3 to 5, the benefits and issues associated with using RNP discharge in a single-element concentric methane-air inverse diffusion jet flame are discussed. It has been shown that RNP discharge with adequate discharge properties (voltage and repetition) can increase the stability of the flame and expand the flammability of the jet toward leaner compositions. However, the effectiveness is significant in a certain voltage-frequency ranges which results a non-thermal spark discharge mode. Hence, different modes of discharge were investigated and a parametric study on the transition between these modes were done.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.