Numerical characterization of different n-decane-ethanol blends combustion
Marina Weyl Costa1; Dario Alviso2; Nasser Darabiha3; Rogério Gonçalves1
1 Unicamp; 2 Universidad Nacional de Assunción; 3 Centrale Supélec
doi:10.20906/CPS/COB-2015-2106
Resumo
Currently, diesel is the most popular fossil fuel in several countries, including Brazil, Paraguay and France. Research and investments in renewable energy are important to reduce oil dependence, to improve energetic safety and to reduce ambiental and public health damages caused by combustion emissions. Sugar cane ethanol is widely used as fuel in Brazil, but only in Otto cycle engines. Nevertheless there are diverse researches revealing that it can be added to diesel and reduce particulate matter emissions of Diesel cycle engines among other advantages. This work objective was to unveil the effects of ethanol addition in n-decane combustion. REGATH package was used in numerical simulation. A new chemical scheme was developed putting together two already validated chemical schemes simulating a 1D premixed laminar flame. This scheme allows prediction of several combustion characteristics. Due to diesel chemical complexity, n-decane is usually used as a diesel simplified surrogate fuel. Blends ranging from 5% to 30% ethanol (volume) were simulated with equivalence ratios ranging from 0.8 to 1.4. For each blend, it was obtained flame speed, flame thickness, maximum temperature and CO and CO 2 emissions. Blend's results were similar to n-decane results, unveiling that the studied combustion properties did not change due to ethanol proprotions added.
Palavras-chave: combustion; n-decane-ethanol blend; flame speed; flame thickness; flame temperature