Enhancing Thermal Performance Investigations of a Methane-Fueled Planar Micro-Combustor with a Counter-Flow Flame Configuration

To enhance the performance of combustors in micro thermophotovoltaic systems, this study employs numerical simulations to investigate a planar microscale combustor featuring a counter-flow flame configuration. The analysis begins with an evaluation of the effects of (1) equivalence ratio Φ and (2) i...

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Veröffentlicht in:Energies (Basel) 2025-01, Vol.18 (1), p.195
Hauptverfasser: Li, Liaoliao, Sun, Yuze, Huang, Xinyu, Guo, Lixian, Zhao, Xinyu
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Sprache:eng
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Zusammenfassung:To enhance the performance of combustors in micro thermophotovoltaic systems, this study employs numerical simulations to investigate a planar microscale combustor featuring a counter-flow flame configuration. The analysis begins with an evaluation of the effects of (1) equivalence ratio Φ and (2) inlet flow rate Vi on key thermal and combustion parameters, including the average temperature of the combustor main wall (T¯w), wall temperature non-uniformity (R¯Tw) and radiation efficiency (ηr). The findings indicate that increasing Φ causes these parameters to initially increase and subsequently decrease. Similarly, increasing the inlet flow rate leads to a monotonic decline in ηr, while the T¯w and R¯Tw exhibit a rise-then-fall trend. A comparative study between the proposed combustor and a conventional planar combustor reveals that, under identical inlet flow rate and equivalence ratio conditions, the use of the counterflow flame configuration can increase the T¯w while reducing the R¯Tw. The Nusselt number analysis shows that the counter-flow flame configuration micro-combustor achieves a larger area with positive Nusselt numbers and higher average Nusselt numbers, which highlights improved heat transfer from the fluid to the solid. Furthermore, the comparison of blow-off limits shows that the combustor with counter-flow flame configuration exhibits superior flame stability and a broader flammability range. Overall, this study provides a preliminary investigation into the use of counter-flow flame configurations in microscale combustors.
ISSN:1996-1073
1996-1073
DOI:10.3390/en18010195