• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2007.05b
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• pp.2360-2365
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• 2007

A new microemitter (microcombustor) configuration for a micro thermophotovoltaic system in which thermal energy is directly converted into electrical energy through thermal radiation was investigated experimentally and computationally. The microemitter as a thermal heat source was designed for a few watt power-generating micro thermophotovoltaic system. In order to satisfy the primary requirements for designing the microemitter, i.e., stable burning in the small confinement and maximum heat transfer through the emitting walls but uniform distribution of temperature along the walls, the present microemitter is cylindrical with an annular-type shield for heat recirculation to apply for the excessive enthalpy concept. Results show that the heat recirculation substantially improves the performance of the microemitter: the observed and predicted thermal radiation from the microemitter walls indicated that heat generated in the microemitter is uniformly emitted.

• 한국연소학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2006.10a
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• pp.46-49
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• 2006

Extinction limits and combustion temperatures in heat-recirculating excess enthalpy reactors employing both gas-phase and catalytic reaction have been examined previously, with and emphasis Reynolds number (Re) effects and possible application to microscale combustion devices. However, Re is not the only parameter needed to characterize reactor operation. In particular, the use of a fixed reactor size implies that residence time and Re cannot be adjusted independently. To remedy this situation, in this work geometrically similar reactors of different physical sizes were tested with the aim of independently determining the effects of Re and Da. It is found that the difference between catalytic and non-catalytic combustion limits narrow as scale decreases. Moreover, to assess the importance of wall thermal conductivity, reactors of varying wall thickness were studied. From these results the effect of scale on microscale reactor performance and implications for practical microcombustion devices are discussed.

• 한국연소학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2002.11a
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• pp.231-235
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• 2002

A theoretical and experimental study on the combustion process in a constant volume micro combustor is described. Unlike in a macro scale constant volume combustor, the heat loss to the wall plays a major role in flame propagation in a micro micro combustor. In order to analyze the effect of heat loss on combustion phenomena, pressure transition from ignition was measured. A number of cylindrical micro combustors with different diameter and depth were used for experiment to study the effect of length scales and shape factor. The diameter of combustor ranged from 7.5mm to 22.5 mm and the height of cylinder was from 1mm to 4mm. Initial pressure was also varied for the experiment. The diagnostic methods were severely limited due to the size of the apparatus and uncertainties of certain quantities to be measured in a small-scale environment. An analytical method to derive physical quantities that are essential for performance prediction from the pressure measurements is described.