AN EXPERIMENTAL INVESTIGATION UPON THE EFFECT OF OXYGEN ENRICHMENT ON THE LAMINAR BURNING VELOCITY OF (IRAQI LPG – O2 – N2) MIXTURE

Abstract

The present study is focused on the effect of oxygen enrichment (as oxidizer) on the flame characteristics of the premixed flame of Iraqi Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG), which consider the first measurement of laminar premixed flame speed for (LPG) with oxygen enrichment. A test rig is designed and fabricated to measure the laminar flame speed using a tube – method and optical technique (photodiode). The laminar flame speed results were obtained at atmospheric pressure, 301K initial temperature; three levels of oxygen concentration (21, 23 & 25) volume % and equivalence ratio (from 0.6 to 1.4) were tested. All the measurements were carried out during the pre-pressure period. Experimental laminar burning velocity is calculated according to the “density ratio method”, also the variation of adiabatic flame temperature, flame thickness, and Zel’dovich number which were introduced. The experimental results show that the maximum value for laminar burning velocity occurs at an equivalence ratio = 1.1, and the maximum increase percentage was (23.45%). Validation of experimental work is approved by comparison values of laminar burning velocity for (ILPG – air) mixture with the available published data at the same conditions. Good agreements are observed in the comparison with the other literature results. (21, 23&25) volume%.