Effect of the Configuration of Plasma Jet Plug on Combustion Characteristics in a Constant Volume Vessel

플라즈마 제트 플러그의 형상이 정적연소기내 연소특성에 미치는 영향

This paper presents combustion characteristics of LPG-air mixture ignited by the plasma jet in a cylindrical vessel with constant volume, in which our focus is placed on the multi-hole plug configuration. Four types of the plug configuration depending on the number of orifice and the arranged angle are considered, along with two cases of conventional spark ignition for comparison. Not only the flame propagation is photographed at intervals, but the pressure in the combustion chamber is also recorded through the entire combustion process. The results show that the plasma jet ignition enhances the overall combustion rate remarkably in comparison to the spark ignition by generating irregular flame front and penetrating through the unburned mixture. The combustion enhancement rate agrees favorably with the available data, which supports the validity of our experiment. Synthetically estimating, the two-hole sixty-degree plug appears to be the most desirable, in that the maximum pressure as well as the combustion duration is less affected by the sub-energy level than the others. It is also deduced that there may exist an optimal plug configuration capable of rapid combustion for a specific combustion chamber.