Combined non-luminous flame radiation and surface tension effects during methanol droplet combustion

The effect of non-luminous thermal radiation on suspended (constant relative velocity) methanol droplet combustion in a low temperature (300 K) and low pressure (1 atm) environment is discussed in detail. Numerical results are obtained using a predictive, transient, two-phase, axisymmetric numerical model that includes surface tension effects. Radiation is modeled using the optically thin approximation with the product species CO₂ and H₂O as the radiating species. Results for combustion in a quiescent atmosphere (initial Reynolds number 0.01) and initial droplet diameters in the range of 0.43 mm to 3 mm are presented. The results show that the effect of flame radiation is negligible when the initial droplet diameter is less than approximately 1 mm and becomes increasingly important for droplets with initial diameters greater than approximately 1 mm, as reported in previous literature. The average evaporation constant decreases with the initial droplet diameter. Both radiation and surface tension have a significant effect on the predicted extinction diameters of initially larger droplets. The extinction diameter presents a non-linear variation with the initial droplet diameter for initially larger droplets and agreement with experiments is good.