Abstract
Numerical study with detailed chemistry has been conducted to investigate the NOx formation and structure in $CH_4/Air-CO_2$ counterflow diffusion flames. The importance of radiation effect is identified and the role of $CO_2$ addition is addressed to thermal and chemical reaction effects, which can be precisely specified through the introduction of an imaginary species. Also NO separation technique is utilized to distinguish the contribution of thermal and prompt NO formation mechanisms. The results are as follows : The radiation effect is dominant at low strain rates and it is intensified by $CO_2$ addition. Thermal effect mainly contributes to the changes in flame structure and the amount of NO formation but the chemical reaction effect also cannot be neglected. It is noted that flame structure is changed considerably due to the addition of $CO_2$ in such a manner that the path of methane oxidation prefers to take $CH_4 {\rightarrow}CH_3{\rightarrow}C_2H_6{\rightarrow}C_2H_5$ instead of $CH_4 {\rightarrow}CH_3{\rightarrow}CH_2{\rightarrow}CH$. At low strain rate(a=10) the reduction of thermal NO is dominant with respect to reduction rate, but that of prompt NO is dominant with respect to total amount.
