Abstract
•MILD combustion of CH4 is experimentally studied in model combustor.•Inverse-diffusion flame configuration improves flame stability in MILD combustion.•MILD combustion is not sustainable in smaller loads.•Flame response is more sensitive to operating parameters in swirling combustion.
MILD (moderate or intense low-oxygen dilution) combustion is a promising technology for mitigating NOx emission from fuel combustion, but the combustion stability becomes an issue when using low-preheat air due to the slower reaction at the burner exit. In this study, an inverse-diffusion flame (IDF) burner configuration is proposed to enhance the combustion stability of MILD regime. The burner features an earlier preheat of fuel stream instead of usually adopted air stream, and can be also operated in traditional diffusion swirling combustion mode. Experiments are conducted in a model combustor to examine the effect of varying burner load (P) and equivalence ratio (φ) on flame topology, pollutant (CO and NO) emission performance, as well as flame emitting spectrum for this burner. It shows that increasing P can enhance the combustion stabilities of both swirling mode and MILD mode, and MILD combustion is found unable to be sustained when P is lower than 2 kW. Increasing φ enlarges the flame liftoff distance under swirling combustion, but has a much smaller effect on MILD combustion. Emission data shows a nearly 50 % reduction of NO by MILD combustion comparing to swirling combustion in all operating cases. Spectra analysis suggests a higher sensitivity of the flame response to the operating parameters under swirling combustion in respect to MILD combustion. A longer combustion chamber is found to produce a lower CO emission but has negligible effect on NO emission. Flow field and temperature distributions by further numerical simulation clearly demonstrate the effectiveness of fuel preheat by adopting IDF burner configuration for enhancing the flame stability when adopting normal temperature air in MILD combustion.