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Swirling combustion of premixed gaseous reactants in a short cylindrical chamber

University of British Columbia

The effects of swirl and spark location on combustion duration were studied in a constant volume cylindrical chamber of length-to-diameter ratio of 0.5. A chemically balanced methane-air mixture was swirled up to 628 radians per second by tangential injection. The chamber was closed by a valve before ignition by a spark gap of variable location and electrode geometry. The burning duration, indicated by repeated measurements of combustion pressure rise, was found to be a strong function of swirl intensity and spark location. Increased swirl resulted in decreased burning duration; mid-radius ignition location combined with high swirl resulted in the shortest combustion durations. Spark gap was found to have an important effect on the standard deviation of the burning duration, especially with high swirl. Various "flame holders" were installed to achieve shorter burning durations and lower cyclic variation. Results indicated that the best ignition source geometry was an unshielded, low-drag probe. This gave the least burning durations and the least cyclic variation at the higher swirl values.

Text

2010-07-21

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http://hdl.handle.net/2429/26729

Mechanical Engineering

University of British Columbia

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