Simulation study on the effect of fuel-inlet angle on the swirling combustion

Abstract

Swirling flameless combustion has been highly concerned nowadays due to ultra-low NOx and pollutant emission while delivering low temperature differential and stable combustion. Thanks to the rapid developed computational ability, simulation study has solved higher complexity of computational fluid dynamics problems for commercial and research aspect. In this project, the effect of swirling flameless combustion has been investigated by using computational method. In this study, a new setup has been modelled by varying fuel-inlet angle and to investigate the effect of swirling flameless combustion based on non-premixed swirling combustion furnace SFR 42 configuration. Non-premixed swirling combustion furnace SFR 42 is an asymmetric swirling combustion furnace that allows rapid mixing between air and fuel upstream of the reaction zone. The design of non-premixed swirling combustion furnace introduces visual characteristics of a premixed flame. This study shows that by changing the fuel-inlet angle to 45 degree tangentially, it will produce nine times lower NOX emission compared to fuel-inlet angle 5 degree tangentially. Fuel-inlet angle sloped 45 degree tangentially swirling combustion also produced peak temperature approximate 1400 K which has similar result compared to other cases. This condition helps to improve combustion efficiency and less pollutant emission. Temperature result of SFR 42 was taken as data validation of this project.