Laminar premixed burning characteristics of methanol/ethanol/air at high temperature and pressure

Abstract

A numerical study was conducted to evaluate the laminar burning characteristics of methanol/ethanol/air flames under engine operating conditions. Methanol and ethanol are common burning oil of biomass that can replace fossil fuels and have a high laminar combustion rate relative to gasoline. Few scholars have studied the laminar combustion characteristics of methanol/ethanol mixture. This study aims to analyze the similarities and differences of methanol/ethanol/air flames for different methanol percentages and equivalence ratios in a wide range of pres?sure and temperature conditions. Chemkin software with chemical reaction kinetic mechanism of Mittal was used and validated against experimental data from the literature. The results showed that methanol significantly increases the laminar burning velocities and the net heat release rate. The maximum laminar burning ve?locities is obtained at the equivalence ratio of 1.1. Due to the high calorific value of ethanol, the adiabatic flame temperature of ethanol are slightly higher than that of methanol. The hydrodynamic instabilities of methanol/ethanol/air flame increase at first and then decrease with the increase of equivalence ratio. Finally, sensitiv?ity analysis show that H + O2 < = > O + OH (R1) mainly influences the laminar burning velocities.