Date of Completion

Spring 5-1-2020

Thesis Advisor(s)

Francesco Carbone

Honors Major

Mechanical Engineering

Disciplines

Energy Systems | Fluid Dynamics | Heat Transfer, Combustion

Abstract

The production of soot is omnipresent in society today. Soot is the product of many of the combustion processes that provide the bulk of the usable energy throughout the world. Furthermore, soot particulate poses a great danger to both the environment and all forms of life on Earth. It has proven to pollute ecosystems, foster health problems for human beings, and degrade air quality [1].

These dangers make studying and understanding soot particulate paramount for improving the quality of life. Thus, this study introduces a new flame configuration for studying soot inception. Presently, various common flame configurations have been found to be difficult to use to observe the change of gas to soot particulate in diffusion flame conditions [2]. This is attributed to the thickness of the mixing layer between fuel and oxidizing jets. This new configuration, the Planar Mixing Layer Flame, results in a thicker mixing layer that enables more robust probing capability.

This study is purely analytical in nature. No physical testing of the flame configuration was conducted. However, the ANSYS Fluent simulations and corresponding results laid out provide the basis for future modelling and the feasibility of the physical testing to generate the desired results.

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