Numerical Study of Methane and Air Combustion Inside Heat-Recirculating Combustors

A numerical model on methane/air combustion inside a small Swiss-roll combustor was set up to investigate the flame position of small-scale combustion. The simulation results show that the combustion flame could be maintained in the central area of the combustor only when the speed and equivalence ratio are all within a narrow and specific range. For high inlet velocity, the combustion could be sustained stably even with a very lean fuel and the flame always stayed at the first corner of reactant channel because of the strong convection heat transfer and preheating. For low inlet velocity, small amounts of fuel could combust stably in the central area of the combustor, because heat was appropriately transferred from the gas to the inlet mixture. Whereas, for the low premixed gas flow, only in certain conditions (Φ = 0.8 ～ 1.2 when ν₀ = 1.0m/s, Φ = 1.0 when ν₀ = 0.5m/s) the small-scale combustion could be maintained.