The laminar and turbulent flame speed of methanol/ammonia/air, ethyl-acetate/ammonia/air, and dimethoxymethane/ammonia/air under atmospheric and elevated pressures

Shixing Wang*, Ayman M. Elbaz, Zhihua Wang, William L. Roberts

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

Experiments of the laminar and turbulent flame speed of typical E-fuels blended with ammonia: methanol/ammonia/(CH3OH/NH3)/air, ethyl-acetate/ammonia/(EA/NH3)/air, and dimethoxymethane/ammonia/(DMM/NH3)/air under atmospheric and elevated pressures (1 and 3 atm) are conducted in a fan-stirred constant volume combustion chamber, with initial temperature of 373 K. The results show that turbulent flame speed (ST) follow the same ranking order as laminar flame speed (SL) at fuel-lean side from high to low as: DMM, CH3OH, and EA; while with ammonia addition, CH3OH/NH3 and EA/NH3 have similar SL and ST values; and at fuel-rich side, DMM and EA show increasing ST and ST/SL values than at fuel-lean side Meanwhile, the measured Markstein length (Lb) is decreasing towards the fuel-rich side and even becomes negative for EA. Ammonia addition enhances the turbulent flame wrinkling and deformation from the morphology analyses, and this leads to E-fuel/NH3 blends always having higher normalized turbulent flame speed (ST/SL) than pure E-fuel. Next, we test several different turbulent flame speed correlations composed of (u'/SL) and (lT/lF), it is found that the power exponents of (u'/SL) and (lT/lF) do not necessarily have to be equal; they change as the turbulent regime varies in different zones. ST/SL/Ka = a(Da/Le)b performs best among all correlation types with 0.5 ≤ b ≤ 1 corresponding to the Damköhler's two limits. Comparing three types of Lewis number, it is found that volume based LeV has the best fitting goodness in the correlation of ST/SL/Ka = a(Da/Le)b. Taking into account the developing flame brush thickness, wrinkling ratio and integral length scale as a function of radius, the flame radius based DaR correlations are proposed: ST/SL/γ = a(DaR/Le)b where 0.5 ≤ b ≤ 1 which can unify present experimental data with Lewis number larger than unity and previous data with Lewis number less than unity.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Article number114187
JournalCombustion and Flame
Volume277
DOIs
StatePublished - Jul 2025

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2025 The Combustion Institute

Keywords

  • Ammonia
  • E-fuel
  • Laminar flame speed
  • Lewis number
  • Turbulent flame speed

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • General Chemistry
  • General Chemical Engineering
  • Fuel Technology
  • Energy Engineering and Power Technology
  • General Physics and Astronomy

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'The laminar and turbulent flame speed of methanol/ammonia/air, ethyl-acetate/ammonia/air, and dimethoxymethane/ammonia/air under atmospheric and elevated pressures'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this