Numerical Study on the Characteristics of Methane Hedging Combustion in a Heat Cycle Porous Media Burner

Abstract

With the rapid development of portable devices and micro-small sensors, the demand for small-scale power supplies and high-energy-density energy supply systems is increasing. Comparing with the current popular lithium batteries, micro-scale burners based on micro-thermal photoelectric systems have features of high power density and high energy density, the micro-scale burner is the most critical part of the micro-thermal photovoltaic system. In this paper, the combustor was designed as a heat cycle structure and filled with porous media to improve the combustion characteristics of the micro combustor. In addition, the influence of the porous media distribution on the burner center temperature and wall temperature distribution were studied through numerical simulation. Furthermore, the temperature distribution of the combustor was studied by changing the porous media parameters and the wall parameters. The research results show that the heat cycle structure can reduce heat loss and improve combustion efficiency. When the combustion chamber is filled with porous media, it makes the radial center temperature rise by about 50 K and the temperature distribution more uniform. When filling the heat cycle channel with porous media the wall temperature can be increased. Finally, the study also found that as methane is combusted in the combustor, the temperature of the outer wall gradually increases as the intake air velocity increases. The results of this study provide a theoretical and practical basis for the further design of high-efficiency combustion micro-scale burners in the future.