An experimental study on methane/oxygen-air combustion with a rapidly mixed type tubular flame burner

Methane/oxygen-air combustion has been attempted by using a rapidly mixed type tubular flame burner with four slits, from two of which a fuel is injected and from another two an oxidizer is injected. The oxygen concentration (molar) in the oxygen-air oxidizer has been varied from 21% (air) to 100% (pure oxygen). Results show that uniform tubular flame combustion can be obtained for a wide range of equivalence ratios, if the oxygen molar concentration in the oxygen-air oxidizer is less than about 50%. Above 50%, however, very intense turbulent combustion occurs frequently and the circular-shaped tubular flame is deformed as oval-shaped for most equivalence ratios. The uniform tubular flame range is reduced and quite limited in the vicinity of lean condition. Detailed observations show that for pure (or near pure) oxygen oxidizer, two diffusion flames are established between the fuel and oxidizer streams at the exits of the fuel slits, which prevents fuel from mixing with oxygen, resulting in a violent turbulent combustion downstream the slits. With use of a burner with smaller slit width, however, formation of the diffusion flame is inhibited and a uniform tubular flame can be established, although still limited close to the lean extinction limit. To fully understand the flame characteristics above, the burning velocities are calculated for various equivalence ratios as well as for various oxygen concentrations in the oxygen-air oxidizer using the CHEMKIN PREMIX code with the GRI kinetic mechanism.