• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.75-84
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• 2007

The effects of hydrogen enrichment to methane on NOx formation have been investigated with swirl stabilized pre-mixed hydrogen enriched methane flame in a laboratory-scale pre-mixed combustor(nominally of 5,000 kcal/hr). The hydrogen enriched methane fuel and air were mixed in a pre-mixer and introduced to the combustor through different degrees of swirl vanes. The flame stability was examined for different amount of hydrogen addition to the methane fuel, different combustion air flow rates and swirl strengths by comparing equivalence ratio at the lean flame limit. The hydrogen addition effects and swirl intensity on the combustion characteristics of pre-mixed methane flames were examined using gas analyzers, and OH chemiluminescence techniques to provide information about species concentration of emission gases and flowfield. The results of NOx and CO emissions were compared with a diffusion flame type combustor. The results show that the lean stability limit depends on the amount of hydrogen addition and the swirl intensity. The lean stability limit is extended by hydrogen addition, and is reduced for higher swirl intensity at lower equivalence ratio. The addition of hydrogen increases the NOx emission, however, this effect can be reduced by increasing either the excess air or swirl intensity. The NOx emission of hydrogen enriched methane premixed flame was lower than the corresponding diffusion flame under the fuel lean condition.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.124-130
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• 2004

The structure of the nonpremixed methane-air counterflow flames in microgravity was investigated by axisymmetric simulation with Fire Dynamics Simulator (FDS) to evaluate the numerical method and to see the effects of strain rate and fuel concentration on the diffusion flame structure in microgravity. Results of FDS for the methane mole fractions, $X_m$=20, 50, and 80% in the fuel stream, and the global strain rates $a_g$=20, 50, and $90s^{-1}$ for each methane mole fraction were compared with those of OPPDIF, an one-dimensional flamelet code. There was good agreement in the temperature and axial velocity profiles between the axisymmetric and one-dimensional computations. It was shown that FDS is applicable to the counterflow flames in a wide range of strain rate and fuel concentration by predicting accurately the flame thickness, flame positions and stagnation points.

• Korean Journal of Air-Conditioning and Refrigeration Engineering
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• v.23 no.12
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• pp.769-775
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• 2011

Methane hydrate is formed by physical binding between water molecules and methane gas, which is captured in the cavities of water molecules under the specific temperature and pressure. $1m^3$ hydrate of pure methane can be decomposed to the methane gas of $172m^3$ and water of $0.8m^3$ at standard condition. Therefore, there are a lot of practical applications such as separation processes, natural gas storage transportation and carbon dioxide sequestration. For the industrial utilization of hydrate, it is very important to rapidly manufacture hydrate. So in this study, hydrate formation was experimented by adding THF and oxidized carbon nanotubes in distilled water, respectively. The results show that when the oxidized carbon nanofluids of 0.03 wt% was, the amount of gas consumed during the formation of methane hydrate was higher than that in the THF aqueous solution. Also, the oxidized carbon nanofluids decreased the hydrate formation time to a greater extent than the THF aqueous solution at the same subcooling temperature.

• Journal of Mechanical Science and Technology
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• v.19 no.9
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• pp.1811-1820
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• 2005

Thermo-acoustic instability of methane/ air flames in an industrial gas-turbine combustor is numerically investigated adopting CFD analysis. The combustor has 37 EV burners through which methane and air are mixed and then injected into the chamber. First, steady fuel! air mixing and flow characteristics established by the burner are investigated by numerical analysis with single burner. And then, based on information on the flow data, the burners are modeled numerically via equivalent swirlers, which facilitates the numerical analysis with the whole combustion system including the chamber and numerous burners. Finally, reactive flow fields within the chamber are investigated numerically by unsteady analysis and thereby, spontaneous instability is simulated. Based on the numerical results, scaling analysis is conducted to find out the instability mechanism in the combustor and the passive control method to suppress the instability is proposed and verified numerically.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Automotive Engineers
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• v.4 no.4
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• pp.201-209
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• 1996

This study describes the combustion characteristics of methance-air mixture with various equivalence retio and initial conditions of mixture in constant volume combustion chamber. Combustion characteristics of methane-air mixture such as combustion pressure, combustion temperature, and heat release were investigated by the measurement of combustion pressure and temperature in the combustion chamber. The results show that maximum combustion pressure, gas temperature and rate of heat release have peaks at equivalence ratio of 1.1. Combustion duration is also the shortest at the equivalence ratio of 1.1 and it is shortened as initial mixture temperature increases.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Military Science and Technology
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• v.6 no.3
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• pp.103-110
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• 2003

The present work was conducted to achieve the better understanding of the performance analysis technique for the expander type air turbo ramjet engine. For this purpose, the performance analysis was carried out using a small engine(8.0kN thrust) with two types of fuels. From this analysis, at the same input condition, the thrust of methane-fueled engine was 25% lower than that of hydrogen. In addition, the case of methane shows the inapplicable engine performance cycle.(i.e., The compressor work exceeds the turbine output power) These results come mainly from the different heating value of each fuel and specific heat. This analysis also shows that, to build a same performance cycle as the hydrogen case, the methane-fueled engine requires increased air and fuel flow rates, increased turbine expansion ratio, and decreased compressor pressure ratio.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Automotive Engineers
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• v.11 no.4
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• pp.29-36
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• 2003

A cylindrical constant volume combustion chamber was used to investigate the flow characteristics at spark plug and the combustion characteristics of inhomogeneous charge methane-air mixture under several parameters. The flow characteristics such as mean velocity and turbulence intensity was analyzed by hot wire anemometer. Combustion pressure development measured by piezoelectric pressure transducer was used to investigate the effect of initial charge pressure, excess air ratio and ignition times on combustion pressure and combustion duration. Mean velocity and turbulence intensity had the maximum value at 200 or 300ms and then decreased to beneath 0.05m/s gradually at 3 seconds. Second mixture is accompanied by an increase in the combustion rate, and that the higher the mass which is added in the second stage injection, the faster the burn rate.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.45-51
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• 2015

An experimental study was performed for the analysis of frequency-equivalence ratio correlation in the methane-air premixed flame influenced by ultrasonic standing wave. The propagating flame was caught by high-speed Schlieren photography, and the variation of flame-behavior including the flame structure was investigated in detail employing a post-processing analysis of the high-speed images. It was found that a structural variation and propagation-velocity augmentation of the methane-air premixed flame by the intervention of ultrasonic standing wave were more caused off around the stoichiometry. Also, a dependency of the flame behaviors on the driving frequency and equivalence ratio of the reactants was confirmed.

• International Journal of Automotive Technology
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• v.5 no.3
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• pp.181-188
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• 2004

A cylindrical constant-volume combustion chamber was used to investigate the flow characteristics at the spark electrode gap and the combustion characteristics of an inhomogeneous charge methane-air mixture under several parameters such as stratified pattern, initial charge pressure, ignition time and the excess air ratio of the initial charge mixture. Flow characteristics including mean velocity and turbulence intensity were analyzed by a hot-wire anemometer. The combustion pressure development, measured by a piezo-electric pressure transducer, was used to investigate the effect of initial charge pressure, excess air ratio and ignition times on combustion pressure and combustion duration. It was found that the mean velocity and turbulence intensity had the maximum value around 200-300 ms and then decreased gradually to near-zero value at 3000 ms. For the stratified patterns, the combustion rate under the rich injection (RI) condition was the fastest. Under the initial charge conditions, the second mixture was accompanied by an increase in the combustion rate, and that the higher the mass which is added in the second stage injection, the faster the combustion rate.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.33 no.7
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• pp.527-534
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• 2009

Flame stabilization characteristics were experimentally investigated in a fuel-air cross flowing mixing layer. A combustor consists of a narrow channel of air steam and a cross flowing fuel. Depending on the flow rates of methane and air, flame can be stabilized in two modes. First is an attached flame which is formulated at the backward step where the methane and air streams meet. Second is a lifted-flame which is formulated within the mixing layer far down steam from backward step. The heights and flame widths of the lifted flames were measured. Flame shapes of the lifted flames were similar to an ordinary edge flame or a tribrachial flame, and their behavior could be explained with the theories of an edge flame. With the increase of the mixing time between fuel and air, the fuel concentration gradient decreases and the flame propagation velocity increases. Thus the flame is stabilized where the flow velocity is matched to the flame propagation velocity in spite of a significant disturbance in the fuel mixing and heat loss within the channel. This study provides many experimental results for a higher fuel concentration gradient, and it can also be helpful for the development and application of a smaller combustor.