Effect of non-luminous flame radiation during methanol droplet combustion

Vasudevan Raghavan, Daniel N. Pope, George Gogos

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

7 Scopus citations

Abstract

The effect of non-luminous thermal radiation on the combustion of a suspended methanol droplet in a low temperature (300K) and low pressure (1atm) 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 nearly quiescent atmosphere (initial Reynolds number 0.01) and initial droplet diameters in the range of 0.43mm to 3mm are presented. In agreement with the reported literature, it is shown that the effect of flame radiation is negligible when the initial droplet diameter is less than approximately 1mm and becomes increasingly important for larger droplets. As a result, the average evaporation constant decreases with the initial droplet diameter. Radiation and surface tension combined as well as surface tension alone have a significant effect on the predicted extinction diameters of methanol droplets. However, when surface tension is neglected, radiation alone has a negligible effect on the prediction of the extinction diameter. The extinction diameter presents a non-linear variation with the initial droplet diameter for initially large droplets. The agreement with experimental results available in the literature is very good.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)546-564
Number of pages19
JournalCombustion Science and Technology
Volume180
Issue number3
DOIs
StatePublished - Mar 2008
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • Droplet combustion
  • Methanol
  • Non-luminous radiation
  • Surface tension

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