This study is the combustion characteristics of the methane gas in a constant volume combustion chamber for a large displacement volume commercial engine, which discusses the fundamental characteristics of the fuel in the aspect of the thermo-chemistr...
This study is the combustion characteristics of the methane gas in a constant volume combustion chamber for a large displacement volume commercial engine, which discusses the fundamental characteristics of the fuel in the aspect of the thermo-chemistry and thermodynamics and compares these results with the experimental ones. In addition, The combustion processes are discussed on the basis of pressure measurement. Also torch device is applied to the constant volume combustion chamber and the effects of orifice diameter and volume of torch device are analyzed through the heat release patterns and the flame visualization.
In the aspect of the thermo-chemistry and thermodynamics, the results show that the final pressures from theoretical analysis are varied under the same heating value due to the change of constant volume specific heat, caused by the difference of the burned gas composition according to the fuel gas compositions and the stoichiometric ratios and the trends of the analytic and experimental pressures coincide very well, however, some minor differences are observed between two. The root cause of the difference is the heat transfer, which changes the specific heat and lowers the temperature considerably, in the real combustion process. In addition, the large chamber volume and the ignition position promote the transfer to the wall. Also, the fuel conversion efficiency increases as the methane mol fraction decreases and is maximum when the stoichiometric ratio is from 0.8 to 0.9. For these increments due to the composition and the stoichiometric ratio could sufficiently compensate the decrement by the specific heat ratio drop, bio fuel like LFG might be more advantageous than pure methane in the real engine.
In the analysis of the combustion process base on the pressure measurement, the bi-modal peak pressure phenomenon, which is caused by the interaction of the heat release and the heat transfer, are more apparent as the mixtures are more favorable to the combustion and the magnitudes of the pressures depend on the unburned fraction. In addition, there exist 4 main inflection points during the heat release due to the variation process of the heat transfer area related to flame propagation from the ignition point. Also, the inflection points increase as the mixture quality is worse because of the extended burn duration. Consequently, the sophisticated interactions between the heat transfer area changing pattern due to the flame propagation and the transfer duration might cause very peculiar heat release patterns.
On the other hands, for the improvement of the combustion, torch devices are applied to the combustion chamber. The results show the there exists optimum orifice-diameter ratio regardless of the torch volume and little or adverse effects on the combustion are observed in case of the excessive small ratio. In addition, the torch ignition reduce the burn duration in the first place and then the decrease of heat transfer caused by shortening time contributes to raise of the peak combustion pressure. Finally, the torch mostly plays positive role in shortening main burn duration as the combustion condition is worse due to lower methane fraction, on the other hand the torch reduces initial burn duration rather than main burn as methane fraction increases.
The torch volume can be changed via adjusting the height. As the torch height increases, the peak combustion pressure is higher and the combustion duration is reduced. Especially, combustion pressure and time is improved regardless of kind of torch in the range of < 0.02 and case of = 0.01 shows the highest improvement.
Finally, the heat release patterns and visualization images show that the jet and/or spout from torch promote combustion by accelerating the flame front in the main combustion chamber. In addition, there exists hot gas jet when the orifice diameter is 4 ㎜, while flame passes through orifice directly if the diameter is 6 ㎜ and over. Also the effect of torch ignition is different according to the combinations of the methane fraction, the torch volume and orifice size because various combustion processes occur due to the interaction of these parameters. Finally, the suitable torch might satisfy not less than 6 ㎜ orifice diameter and not more than 0.15 of area ratio concurrently for securing the consistency of combustion process in the real engine.