- Author
- Cho, P. | Law, C. K.
- Title
- Catalytic Ignition and Heat Release of Fuel-Air Mixtures.
- Coporate
- Northwestern Univ., Evanston, IL
- Report
- WSS/CI 84-53, 1984,
- Contract
- N00014-80-C-0586 N00014-83-K-0207
- Book or Conf
- Combustion Institute/Western States Section. Spring Meeting, 1984. April 2-3, 1984, Boulder, CO, 1-23 p., 1984
- Keywords
- flame research | oxygen concentration
- Abstract
- Ignition and heat release rates of fuel/oxygen/nitrogen over platinum wires are experimentally studied using microcalorimetry, aiming to gain additional understanding on the complex transport and kinetic process involved during catalytic oxidation so as to relate the macroscopic observables with the microscopic behavior. The fuels studied are propane and hydrogen. Paramters investigated include catalyst surface temperature, fuel and oxygen concentrations, and flow velocity. Results show that for very low Reynolds number flows the flow velocity has negligible influence on the ignition temperature and heat release rate. Variaton of fuel concentration is found to be an important factor in that the ignition temperature of propane decreases as its concentration is increased from lean to rich mixture while the opposite trend is observed for hydrogen/air mixture. The effect of oxygen concentration on the ignition temperature of propane displays a minimum on the lean side of stoichiometry. The heat release rates show that combustion of the highly-reactive hydrogen/air mixture is usually diffusion-limited.