Numerical Studies of Wall Effects of Laminar Flames

Sammanfattning: Numerical simulations have been done with the CHEMKINsoftware to study different aspects of wall effects in thecombustion of lean, laminar and premixed flames in anaxisymmetric boundary-layer flow. The importance of the chemical wall effects compared to thethermal wall effects caused by the development of the thermaland velocity boundary layer has been investigated in thereaction zone by using different wall boundary conditions, walltemperatures and fuel/air ratios. Surface mechanisms include acatalytic surface (Platinum), a surface that promotesrecombination of active intermediates and a completely inertwall with no species and reactions as the simplest possibleboundary condition. When hydrogen is the model fuel, the analysis of the resultsshow that for atmospheric pressure and a wall temperature of600 K, the surface chemistry gives significant wall effects atthe richer combustion case (f=0.5), while the thermal andvelocity boundary layer gives rather small effects. For theleaner combustion case (f=0.1) the thermal and velocityboundary layer gives more significant wall effects, whilesurface chemistry gives less significant wall effects comparedto the other case. For methane as model fuel, the thermal and velocity boundarylayer gives significant wall effects at the lower walltemperature (600 K), while surface chemistry gives rather smalleffects. The wall can then be modelled as chemically inert forthe lean mixtures used (f=0.2 and 0.4). For the higher walltemperature (1200 K) the surface chemistry gives significantwall effects. For both model fuels, the catalytic wall unexpectedlyretards homogeneous combustion of the fuel more than the wallthat acts like a sink for active intermediates. This is due toproduct inhibition by catalytic combustion. For hydrogen thisoccurs at atmospheric pressure, but for methane only at thehigher wall temperature (1200 K) and the higher pressure (10atm). As expected, the overall wall effects (i.e. a lowerconversion) were more pronounced for the leaner fuel-air ratiosand at the lower wall temperatures. To estimate a possible discrepancy in flame position as aresult of neglecting the axial diffusion in the boundary layerassumption, calculations have been performed with PREMIX, alsoa part of the CHEMKIN software. With PREMIX, where axialdiffusion is considered, steady, laminar, one-dimensionalpremixed flames can be modelled. Results obtained with the sameinitial conditions as in the boundary layer calculations showthat for the richer mixtures at atmospheric pressure the axialdiffusion generally has a strong impact on the flame position,but in the other cases the axial diffusion may beneglected. Keywords:wall effects, laminar premixed flames,platinum surfaces, boundary layer flow