Numerical study on the characteristics of a nano-aluminum dust-air jet flame

Xiangrui Zou, Ningfei Wang, Junlong Wang, Chao Wang, Lei Han, Baolu Shi*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

13 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Nano-sized aluminum dust is quite attractive in the application scenarios with limited residence time. This study simulated an aluminum nanoparticle-air jet flame in a burner that was proposed to characterize the mixing and burning properties of dust and air in a classical ramjet configuration. The model considers the flow of gas phase by employing three-dimensional multicomponent Navier-Stokes equations, and the aluminum particles via the Lagrange approach. A combustion sub-model was developed to characterize the heat convection, radiation and combustion processes of nano-sized aluminum particles. Thereafter, the model was validated by comparing with experimental results of dust jet flow and aluminum particle combustion. With the present model, the characteristics of flow field, and variations of particle temperature, heat release and statuses etc. were examined in detail, by which the mixing zone and flame structure were defined. The results showed that the nano-aluminum particles in the inner mixing layer were firstly ignited by the hot co-flow air and burned, and these particles in the core jet region were ignited downstream. Once the aluminum particles were ignited, they burned out promptly in this burner. The effects of particle size were evaluated, and the results show that the lengths of mixing layer and reaction zone, as well as the width of reaction zone reduce with decreasing particle size, whereas the width of mixing layer stays the same.

Original languageEnglish
Article number107304
JournalAerospace Science and Technology
Volume121
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Feb 2022

Keywords

  • Combustion modeling
  • Dust jet flame
  • Heat convection
  • Multiphase reactive flow
  • Nano-sized aluminum dust

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