EXPERIMENTAL INVESTIGATION OF COMBUSTION IN POROUS INERT MEDIA

Abstract

In the recent years, a lot of researches and development works have been carried out towards a low emission, high energy density combustion reactor that doesn't operate with free flames. The interest has been directed by the needs, of industry to develop high performance radiant heaters while complying with increasingly stringent emissions regulations. In the present dissertation work, for reviewing the processes associated with non-catalytic combustion within porous media, a burner has been fabricated. This cylindrical burner has been divided into two section preheating section which is meant for only heating incoming air-fuel mixture and second is combustion section where actual combustion have taken place. Temperatures have been measured along axial direction within inert porous media and exhaust to ascertain the efficiency of combustion. AVL Digas 4000 exhaust gas analyzer has been used to measure CO, CO2, and Unburned Hydrocarbon to asses the reduction in these pollutants due to porous media. The analysis part includes the effect of parameter such as thermal input and equivalence ratio on temperature profiles and emission characteristics of the system. These observations were carried out for different bed lengths of combustion chamber