The Effect of Catalyst Placement on the Stability of a U-Bend Catalytic Heat-Recirculating Micro-Combustor: A Numerical Investigation

Abstract

This study investigates the combined effect of catalyst placement and solid thermal conductivity on the stability of a U-bend catalytic heat-recirculating micro-combustor. The CFD code ANSYS Fluent 2020 R1 was used for two-dimensional simulations of lean premixed propane/air combustion by varying the inlet gas velocity, i.e., the input power. Three configurations were compared at low (3 W/(m K)) and high (30 W/(m K)) wall thermal conductivity: (A) the configuration in which both inner and outer walls are catalyst coated; (B) only the inner wall is catalyst coated; and (C) only the outer wall is catalyst coated. Numerical results show that, at low thermal conductivity, configuration (B) exhibits the same resistance to extinction as configuration (A), whereas at high thermal conductivity, configurations (B) and (C) exhibit much lower resistance to blowout than configuration (A). Accordingly, for low-power systems, which typically lose stability via extinction and thus require low-conductive materials, an optimal catalyst placement can be the partial coating of configuration (B). Conversely, for high-power systems, which are prone to blowout and thus require high-conductivity materials, a full coating of both the inner and outer walls is needed to guarantee higher stability. To elucidate these findings, a detailed analysis of the combustion behavior of the three configurations is presented.