HomeCFD Paper LibrarySoftware Tool CFD-GEOM Simulation of Excess-Enthalpy Micro-Scale Combustors with Catalytic Chemistry – Effects of Mixture Strength, flow and Combustor Scale
This report summarizes the simulation results of operating conditions for micro-combustors and potential implications to the integration of these combustors in a micro-Stirling engine. In addition to the description of the basic tools used for the simulation of surface, gas phase chemistries and heat management mechanism, the report contains recommendations for initial designs of excess-enthalpy micro-scale combustors. The integration of the micro-combustor with the micro-Stirling engine requires the choice of optimum heat management resulting from combustion-related heat releases. Issues of heat management and integration with the micro-scale Stirling engine are pursued using CFD simulations. We found that by choice of the operating conditions and channel dimensions catalysis-dominated or catalysis-then-homogeneous phase combustion dominated the processes. The dimensions of the combustors and the flow rates imposed as wells as the mixture equivalence ratios primarily influence the results. For Platinum alloys that can sustain temperature above 1000 K, transitions to homogeneous chemistry is achieved at relatively lean conditions (equivalence ratios of the order of 0.3 for hydrogen-air mixtures).