- Author
- Vatikiotis, C. S.
- Title
- Analysis of Combustion and Heat Transfer in a Porous Graphite Medium.
- Coporate
- Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, CA
- Report
- Thesis, June 1980, 157 p.
- Distribution
- Available from National Technical Information Service
- Keywords
- combustion | heat transfer | carbon | graphite | fibers | conduction | convection | diffusion | exothermic reactions | formulations
- Identifiers
- porous media; nonvolatile; finite element method; galerkin formulations
- Abstract
- The problem of a porous graphite fiber plate subject to combustion is formulated. The transient one-dimensional model leads to two heat transfer equations on the graphite and air, and a mass transfer equation on the oxygen. In addition to a combustion heat generation term, the heat transfer model includes the mechanisms of conduction, radiation between fibers, and convection due to induced air flow through the mat. The mass transfer model includes diffusion and convection mechanisms, as wall as a combustion consumption term. The temperature dependency of the system parameters is taken into account. The resulting nonlinear, coupled partial differential equations are solved by a Galerkin formulation of the finite element method. A number of computer analysis results are presented. The results show the effects of initial conductions, plate thickness, fiber diameter and air flow rate on ignition and extinction.