Experimental study on propane/oxygen and natural gas/oxygen laminar diffusion flames in diluting and preheating conditions

In the present study, propane/oxygen and natural gas/oxygen diffusion flames within laminar regime have been investigated experimentally to determine the effects of oxidant preheating and diluting. This research has been divided into two parts. At first, effect of oxygen dilution with nitrogen and carbon dioxide gases has been investigated. In this section, stability and flame configuration variations are studied. Furthermore, it is inferred that combustion of natural gas and propane with pure oxygen can increase flame stability against increasing the fuel jet velocities through increasing burning velocity of the flame as compared with the combustion of natural gas or propane with normal air. In the other part, oxidant stream preheating up to 480 K and contemporaneous diluting with nitrogen or carbon dioxide are investigated and results are compared with non-preheating tests. Preheating causes more flame stability with respect to dilution process. Also, due to combustion products temperature rise and also reduction in ignition delay time in preheating, these flames are more stable and also visually more luminous in comparison with normal temperature flames.