Soot Formation Modeling

Project Summary

In addition to carbon capture, an inherent benefit to oxy-combustion is that the oxygen and dilution gases are initially separated, and can be blended or separately injected into a boiler, furnace or kiln in many configurations. This offers flexibility in the design and operation of oxy-fuel burners. Fundamental laboratory studies of non-premixed flames have demonstrated that dilution gases injected into a burner can have a profound impact on soot formation (above).

Soot is carbonaceous particulate formed during hydrocarbon combustion. Its presence in industrial boilers and furnaces plays an important role for radiation heat transfer and its emission to the atmosphere affects both the environment and human health. For these reasons, soot volume fraction is often included in CFD combustion models of industrial combustion systems. The complexity of modeling in such applications has led to the widespread use of semi-empirical models, rather than computationally-expensive detailed models, which have not been developed and validated for oxy-combustion. Our aim is to develop robust models that accurately predict soot formation for variable reactant concentrations, characteristic times, and fuels.

Publications

A modeling approach for soot formation in non-premixed flames with elevated stoichiometric mixture fraction.
PR Johnson, RK Chakrabarty, BM Kumfer
Combustion and Flame, 2021 10.1016/j.combustflame.2021.02.029

Soot formation characteristics in laminar coflow flames with application to oxy-combustion.
C Lou, Z Li, Y Zhang, BM Kumfer
Combustion and Flame, 2021 10.1016/j.combustflame.2021.01.018

Evaluation of semi-empirical soot models for nonpremixed flames with increased stoichiometric mixture fraction and strain.
PR Johnson, RK Chakrabarty, BM Kumfer
Combustion and Flame, 2020 10.1016/j.combustflame.2020.04.019