Premixed Combustion Flame Instability Characteristics in Constant Volume Vessels

Start date: 5 July 2022
End date: 4 July 2025
Funder: Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC)
Value: £786,972
Partners and collaborators: University of Birmingham
Primary investigator: Prof. Hongming Xu (University of Birmingham) and Dr. Junfeng Yang (University of Leeds)
Co-investigators: Prof. Derek Bradley
External co-investigators: Dr. Dawei Wu (University of Birmingham) Dr. M M Jangi (University of Birmingham) Dr. Roger Cracknell (SHELL)
Postgraduate students: Dr. Mohamed Morsy (University of Leeds) Mr. Yu Xie (University of Leeds)

Cellular instability and self-acceleration of premixed flames are commonly observed in fuel combustion, due to the thermal-diffusive and hydrodynamic instability. Cellar instability significantly influences the flame structure and speed, and the resultant self-acceleration has been widely observed in spherical flame studies, with high influences on the turbulent burning velocity of various combustion systems and causing higher fire and explosion hazards. Mapping the regimes of cellular instability and self-acceleration could help improve combustion modelling which is widely used in design of combustion systems and investigation of fire and explosion hazards.

Impact

This project will generate detailed database of 2D&3D flame images of the premixed flame propagation of hydrogen, methane and propane, and provide a greater understanding of cellular instability and self-acceleration mechanism. In addition, an analytic model for predicting cellular instability and self-acceleration will be established using newly developed dimensionless groups, e.g. Cellularity Factor, self-acceleration exponent, fractal dimension of future mainstream fuels. The hydrogen energy industry will benefit by having immediate access to the data and will exploit the results to enable more accurate predictions of decarbonised combustors and shorten the time and cost of new product development. Moreover, it has great potential to contribute the international collaboration beyond the community in the field of flame and combustion research and development.

Publications and outputs

Zhang G, Xu H, Wu D, Yang J, Morsy ME, Jangi M, Cracknell R. 2024. Quantitative three-dimensional reconstruction of cellular flame area for spherical hydrogen-air flames. Fuel. 132504-132504 375

Xie Y, Yang J, Gu X. 2024. Flame wrinkling and self-disturbance in cellularly unstable hydrogen-air laminar flames. Combustion and Flame. 113505-113505 265

Zhang G, Xu H, Wu D, Yang J, Morsy ME, Jangi M, Cracknell R, Kim W. 2024. Deep learning-driven analysis for cellular structure characteristics of spherical premixed hydrogen-air flames. International Journal of Hydrogen Energy. 63-73 68

Li J, Xie Y, Elsayed Morsy M, Yang J. 2024. Laminar burning Velocities, Markstein numbers and cellular instability of spherically propagation Ethane/Hydrogen/Air premixed flames at elevated pressures. Fuel. 131078-131078 364

AL-Khafaji M, Yang J, Tomlin AS, Thompson HM, de Boer G, Liu K, Morsy ME. 2023. Laminar burning velocities and Markstein numbers for pure hydrogen and methane/hydrogen/air mixtures at elevated pressures. Fuel. 129331-129331 354

Xie Y, Elsayed Morsy M, Yang J. 2023. Self-Acceleration and global pulsation of unstable laminar Hydrogen-Air flames. Fuel. 129182-129182 353

Xie Y, Morsy ME, Li J, Yang J. 2022. Intrinsic Cellular Instabilities of Hydrogen Laminar Outwardly Propagating Spherical Flames. Fuel. 327

Morsy ME, Yang J. 2022. The instability of laminar methane/hydrogen/air flames: Correlation between small and large-scale explosions. International Journal of Hydrogen Energy. 29959-29970 47.69

Project website

https://gow.epsrc.ukri.org/NGBOViewGrant.aspx?GrantRef=EP/W002299/1