Experimental study on the production of CO-NO-HC emissions in the radial swirling flow combustion system

Abstract

The main purpose of this paper is to evaluate the production of CO-NO-HC emissions while varying the swirl angle of curve vane radial swirler. Air swirler adds sufficient swirling to the inlet flow to generate central recirculation region (CRZ) which is necessary for flame stability and fuel air mixing enhancement. Therefore designing an appropriate air swirler is a challenge to produce stable, efficient and low emission combustion inside a burner system. Four radial curve vane swirlers with 30°, 40°, 50° and 60° vane angle corresponding to swirl number of 0.366, 0.630, 0.978 and 1.427 respectively were used in this analysis to show the effect of vane angle on emission production at end of combustion chamber. Pollutant NO reduction of more than 10 percent was obtained for the swirl number of 1.427 compared to 0.366. CO emissions were reduced by 20 percent, 25 percent and 38 percent reduction in carbon monoxide (CO) emission for swirl number of 0.630, 0.978 and 1.427 compared to swirl number of 0.366 respectively. Meanwhile, there was a small decrease in unburned HC emissions when increasing the swirl number for the whole range of equivalence ratios. Results show that the swirling action is augmented with the increase in the vane angle, which leads to better performance of CO-NO-HC emission production inside liquid fuel burner system.