Examination of Predictive Flame Extinction Boundaries for Bluff Body Stabilized Flames at Elevated Temperature and Pressure Conditions

Abstract

A correlation for the prediction of flame lean extinction limits for premixed combustion systems by Sullivan-Lewis and McDonell is examined. The correlation was developed with the data collected from Sullivan-Lewis' experiments of methane and hydrogen mixtures at elevated temperatures and pressures, similar to gas turbine conditions. Recent flame stability studies have since appeared in literature and has allowed for inspection of the validity of the predictive flame extinction boundary correlation with new data. The blow-off boundary correlation is also examined with previous flame blow off studies with significant variances of parameters compared to the original study used to build the correlation. The data used for comparison differ with fuel type, equivalence ratios, pressures, temperatures, turbulence intensities, and flameholder geometries. The analysis concludes that the predictive flame extinction correlation developed is able to accurately predict a wide range of extinction conditions reported in the literature. However, it is observed that the correlation is not able to fully capture the behavior of the data for conditions in which turbulence intensities are above 5%.