COMBUSTION OF LIQUID FUELS IN A POROUS RADIANT BURNER

The combustion of a liquid fuel within a highly porous inert medium (P IM) has been investigated numerically and experimentally. A one-dimens ional laminar flow model is used in this work. Combustion is modeled u sing a multistep reaction mechanism. Non-local thermal equilibrium bet ween the gas, the liquid, and the solid phases is accounted for by con sidering separate energy equations for the three phases. Nongray solid radiation and droplet radiation absorption are included in the model. The equations for the liquid phase are formulated using a Lagrangian description and the equations for the gas and solid phases are formula ted using an Eulerian description. PI burner that allows effective con trol of the equivalence ratio and the burning rate is built to study t he phenomena. Burning rates, temperature, and emissions are measured. Numerical results are obtained for droplet size and temperature histor y as well as flame speed and temperature profile within the burner. Ef fects of various parameters on the burner performance are studied. Pre dictions of the flame speed, the peak temperatures, and emissions are compared with experiments.