Rapidly mixed combustion of hydrogen/oxygen diluted by N₂ and CO₂ in a tubular flame combustor

In this study hydrogen flames have been attempted in a rapidly mixed tubular flame combustor for the first time, in which fuel and oxidizer are individually and tangentially injected into a cylindrical combustor to avoid flame flash back. Three different cases were designed to examine the effects of fuel and oxidizer feeding method, diluent property, oxygen content and equivalence ratio on the characteristics of hydrogen flame, including the flame structure, lean extinction limit, flame stability and temperature. The results show that by enhancing mixing rate through feeding system, the range of equivalence ratio for steady tubular flame can be much expanded for the N₂ diluted mixture, however, at the oxygen content of 0.21 (hydrogen/air) the steady tubular flame is achieved only up to equivalence ratio of 0.5; by decreasing oxygen content, the lean extinction limit slightly increases, and the upper limit for steady tubular flame establishment increases significantly, resulting in an expanded tubular flame range. For CO₂ diluted mixture, the stoichiometric combustion has been achieved within oxygen content of 0.1 and 0.25, for which the burned gas temperature is uniformly distributed inside the flame front; as oxygen content is below 0.21, a steady tubular flame can be obtained from the lean to rich limits; and the lean extinction limit increases from 0.17 to 0.4 as oxygen content decreases from 0.21 to 0.1, resulting in a shrunk tubular flame range. Laminar burning velocity, temperature and Damköhler number are calculated to examine the differences between N₂ and CO₂ diluted combustion as well as the requirement for hydrogen-fueled tubular flame establishment.