Combustion Science and Technology, Vol.180, No.4, 652-673, 2008
Influences of uniform electrical fields on burning rate constant of ethanol droplet combustion
The burning rate constants of ethanol droplet flame under uniform electrical fields were investigated experimentally and numerically. The droplet was burned between two flat electrodes and 1-7 kV DC Volts were applied. The combustion chamber was dropped from the top of a drop tower and the experiment was carried out under microgravity environment to eliminate the effect of buoyancy. Direct photographs of the droplet flame were captured and the change in droplet diameter was measured to obtain burning rate constants. A two-dimensional numerical simulation was also conducted on the droplet combustion in a uniform electrical field. A chemical reaction model with some elementary reactions of ion species was applied. The deformation of the electrical field was predicted by solving the Poisson equation. The predictions show that the burning rate constant increases and the flame deformation becomes large as the applied voltage increases, which is in qualitatively agreement with the experimental results. The relationship between the burning rate constant and the induced flow velocity by Coulomb force is discussed in the analogy of the burning behavior in a convective flow.