SOOT YIELD OF TURBULENT PREMIXED PROPANE-OXYGEN-INERT GAS FLAMES IN A CONSTANT-VOLUME COMBUSTOR AT HIGH PRESSURES

The soot yield has been studied by a premixed propane-oxygen-inert gas combustion in a specially designed disk-type constant-volume combustion chamber to investigate the effect of pressure, temperature and turbulence on soot formation. Premixtures are simultaneously ignited by eight spark plugs located on the circumference of chamber at 45 degrees intervals in order to observe the soot formation under high temperature and high pressure. The eight converged flames compress the end gases to a high pressure. The laser schlieren and direct flame photographs with observation area of 10 mm in diameter are taken to examine the behaviors of flame front and gas flow in laminar and turbulent combustion. The soot volume fraction in the chamber center during the final stage of combustion at the highest pressure is measured by the in-situ laser extinction technique and simultaneously the corresponding burnt gas temperature by the two-color pyrometry method. The changes of pressure and temperature during soot formation are controlled by varying the initial charging pressure and the volume fraction of inert gas compositions, respectively. It is found that the soot yield increases with dropping the temperature and raising the pressure at a constant equivalence ratio, and the soot yield in turbulent combustion decreases as compared with that in laminar combustion because the burnt gas temperature increases with the drop of heat loss for laminar combustion.