Proceedings of the ASME 2012 Summer Heat Transfer Conference HT2012 July 8-12, 2012, Rio Grande, Puerto

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HT2012-58513
Numerical analysis of heat transfer for an axisymmetric flame in microgravity region
Vibhor Jajoo Department of Mechanical Engineering, Banaras Hindu University, India *Corresponding author (email: vibhor.jajoo.bhu@gmail.com) Abstract In a foreseeable future, residing for a long time in Space like in International Space station, some issues have to be solved to improve the conditions of living within the International Space Station. One of these issues is the fire safety & heat transfer phenomena in microgravity. In space during fire condition with air flow due to ventilation system can generate life threatening condition to crew members. It is important to study the phenomena of heat and mass transfer in microgravity environment. Buoyant convection, which provides oxidizer to sustain and invigorate fires on earth, is absent in the weightlessness of a spacecraft in free fall orbit. In the absence of convection, molecular diffusion of oxidizer is the only means of transport of oxygen to a fire, and this is a slow process compared with convection. As such, supported by the first combustion experiments in space (Kimzey, 1974), expectations of some spacecraft designers were that microgravity commonly offered reduced flammability and fire spread rates. Such expectations are commonly met when the spacecraft environmental atmosphere is quiescent, but quiescence is not a normal condition owing to ventilation system operation. A numerical approach is been taken by FORTRAN program solving equations in through grid systems for axisymmetric steady flame in zero gravity condition using cellulose as a fuel with different flow speed. Temperature maps are drawn for various oxygen concentration showing limits of temperature achieved and fire sustainability in microgravity. As well flame structure and ignition process is discussed with respect to flow speed as well with oxygen concentration. INTRODUCTION Ignition of solid fuels by an external radiant heat source, and the subsequent transition to flame spread are both processes that have application to spacecraft fire safety. A material that undergoes a momentary ignition but quickly extinguishes might be acceptable for use in spacecraft, but a material which permits transition from ignition to flame spread poses a significant hazard and is clearly undesirable. Unfortunately, our fundamental understanding of what controls this transition is not well developed at this time. A fires hazard is determined by the total heat release rate from the fire. The total heat release rate depends on the burning area and the burning rate. But as basic we have to study about flame temperature and flame structure for understanding heat rate phenomena. Generally, a fire starts from a small local ignition source and spreads out three-dimensionally from there. The flame spread directionality is a strong function of the wind direction or buoyant flow direction. To assess a fires hazard in spacecraft, it is important to analyze temperature and flame pattern in a low speed (0<V< 25cm/s almost equivalent to speed in ISS) flow microgravity environment. This paper aims to focus on flammability map, temperature and flame ignition and flame structure with flow velocity as well as with oxygen concentration variation. Temperature achieved and flame structure in a steady state flow channel. Previous radiative ignition studies [4,5]were either one dimensional or stagnation point geometries, where the mismatches between experiments and theory make direct comparison difficult. A recent two-dimensional model [6, 14] with variable gravity (variable buoyant flow) predicts ignition at low gravity occurs at the fuel vapor plume cap, which is controlled by one-dimensional heat and mass transport processes. Studies of thermally thin fuels found quenching extinction in quiescent air [7], and also found that 2D flame spread in air is a non-monotonic function of flow [8]. At elevated oxygen concentrations, 3D flame spread in quiescent atmospheres is symmetric about the ignition point, whereas if a wind is imposed across the sample, the flame propagates in a horseshoe shape, with the open side downstream of the ignition point [9]. 2D concurrent flame spread studies have found that spread rate increases monotonically with flow, but that steady state flame size is difficult to achieve in drop tower

timescales or Shuttle Glovebox size constraints [10]. Previous detailed thin fuel flame spread computational studies [11 13] are generally steadystate and two-dimensional, so transient and three-dimensional effects are not described. Kashiwagi et al. [9] have developed a three dimensional transient full Navier-Stokes model with finite rate chemistry and surface radiative loss that has been shown to model microgravity ignition and transition well. SIMULATION MODEL: The numerical model consists of steady, axisymmetric governing equations in gas phases. The gas-phase is described by axisymmetric governing equations comprising of full Navier-Stokes equations for laminar flow along with the conservation equations of mass, energy and species. The specie equations are for fuel vapor, oxygen, carbon dioxide and water vapor. A one-step, second-order finite rate Arrhenius reaction between fuel vapor and oxygen is assumed. The fuel model comprises of injection in axisymmetric plane from surface with unit length from 9 -10 cm (Figure 1). The radiation transport is modeled by axial Radiative Transfer Equation, which is solved using Discrete Ordinates Method. The system of coupled partial differential equations for the flow and combustion in the gas phase is solved numerically using SIMPLER algorithm with a single step multi-grid technique for faster convergence. The injection of fuel is assumes to burn ideally i.e no formation of ash or soot particles is assumed. The gas phase model consists of three-dimensional NavierStokes equations for laminar flow along with the conservation equations of mass, energy and species. The specie equations are for fuel vapor, oxygen, carbon dioxide and water vapor. Soot is assumed to be absent based on experimental observation in flame in low speed and low oxygen concentration. The governing equations are presented in nondimensional form. The normalization procedure is similar to the one used by reference [6-8, 14] A one-step, second-order, finite rate Arrhenius reaction between fuel vapor and oxygen is assumed. A direct treatment of radiation involves solving the Radiative Transfer Equation (RTE) for intensity distribution over the domain of interest. Since solving the Radiative Transfer Equation with spectral accuracy is computationally prohibitive for this coupled multidimensional problem, the use of mean absorption coefficients is adopted. In this work, the participating gases are carbon dioxide and water vapor. Soot is assumed to be absent based on the experiment observation on flame in low-speed flow in low oxygen atmosphere [10]. Figure1: axisymmetric Flame structure in problem domain for case of 25cm/s free stream velocity and 11.7% oxygen molar fraction. The system of coupled partial differential equations for the flow and combustion in the gas phase is solved numerically by SIMPLER algorithm [18]. The nonlinear equation sets are discretized using a finite-volume based difference technique. The velocities are stored at staggered grid locations with respect to the scalar variables. The resulting set of algebraic equations is solved by sweeping plane-byplane in each direction. Along each plane, the line-by-line procedure is used, which is a combination of Gauss-Seidel and the tridiagonal matrix algorithm (TDMA). In addition, the gas-phase system is coupled to the sold-phase equations, which are solved by finite-difference technique. RESULT & DISCUSSION:

1.

Flammability map:

The curve is first decreasing, until it reaches a minimum. Then, it is increasing as the flow velocity is getting higher. Two different extinction areas can be distinguished: there is radiative extinction limit, and blow off extinction limit. Radiative extinction limit This effect (the decrease of the extinction limit as the flow increases) is not remarkable at high flow velocities, and has for a long time first been neglected. Number of theoretical, numerical and experimental studies though proved that in low flow velocities, it was responsible of flame extinction. First, radiative heat loss contributes to reduced flame temperature. When the flow velocity decreases, the radiative heat loss per total heat release increases, in the same time, the flame temperature decreases because the solid sample works as a heat sink. These two properties lead to radiative extinction.[17]

Blow off extinction limit To explain this phenomenon, the Damkhler number (Da) was introduced. This non-dimensional parameter describes finite kinetics in the gas phase combustion process. = a/ c Where a denotes the residence time (time required for a fuel particle to travel the gas preheated region), and c denotes the chemical reaction time (time required for a fuel particle to react with the oxidizer). If Da is too small, then there is flame extinction. When the flow velocity increases, a decreases result to decrease in Da. On the other hand, a rise of oxygen concentration leads to a fall of c. As higher flow velocities reduce Da, the boundary under which there is flame extinction is obtained for lower values of c. This means that the faster the flow velocity is, extinction occurs at higher oxygen concentration. These two mechanisms (blow off extinction and radiative extinction) explain the pattern of the curve exhibited previously.[17] 11.8
Oxygen Molar fraction (%)

2100
Flame temperature (K)

O2 21%

O2 15%

1850 1600 1350 1100 0 5 10 15 20 25

Free stream air flow velocity (cm/s)

Figure 3: temperature dependency with air flow velocity. Two lines shown are for oxygen molar fraction 21% and 15%. It can be seen that temperature starts increasing with air flow but becomes constant during stable flame. A wide flow speed analysis is required to project temperature dependency with air flow From this graph we can interpret is temperature difference for two fix oxygen concentrations decrease with decrease in air flow. Figure 4 shows a straight line behavior excluding near extinction limit area, near extinction limit temperature drops down rapidly. This graph have same behavior match to the polythene fuel experimentally [17]. These graphs can be used to determine the flame temperature at extinction limit by using the experimental value of oxygen concentration when extinction occurs without experimental needs and can give accurate temperature and position of extinction limit. 2100
Flame temperature (K)

11.4 11 10.6 10.2 9.8 0 10 20 30

Free stream air flow velocity (cm/s)

Figure 2: Flammability map drawn between oxygen molar fraction and air flow velocity. The most important graph for fire safety is flammability map or extinction limit graph. For the cellulose fuel in above defined condition flammability map is obtained as shown in figure 2. The fundamental oxygen limit is found to be 9.95% at flow velocity 7 cm/s. The blow off extinction limit extends in microgravity; this is due to the disappearance of natural convection. Indeed, the flow velocity is influenced by forced convection, and natural convection. Without the last one, the flow velocity decreases. To that extend, Da number increases, causing an extending of the extinction limit.

1800 1500 1200 900 10

Oxygen Molar fraction (%)

AF 25 15

AF 6 20

AF 2 25

Figure 4: temperature dependency with oxygen molar fraction. Three lines shown are for free stream air flow velocity 25, 6 and 2 cm/s.

2.

Temperature Map:

3.

Flame structure:

Flame temperature is an important property to study of flame and varies with oxygen concentration as well with air flow velocity.

Flame structure is analyzed in terms of height and width, considering height in Y axis and width in X axis as shown in figure 1.

0.8
Flame Height (cm)

0.95
Flame Height (cm)

FH @ 21%

FH @ 15%

0.7 0.6 0.5 0.4 10 12 14 16 18 20 22

0.85 0.75 0.65 0.55 0.45 0 5

Free stream air flow velocity (cm/s)

10

15

20

25

Oxygen Molar fraction (%)

Figure 5: Flame height with free stream velocity. Two lines shown are for 21% and 15% oxygen . Flame height looks like mirror image of flammability map. The possible explanation of this behavior is because in higher flow velocity momentum forces flame to bent and in lower flow velocity flame is not grown enough possibly due to incomplete burnout. An interesting fact of the flame height is that flame reaches to maximum height at point of fundamental ignition point corresponding to flammability map. 1.8 1.4
Flame Width (cm)

Figure 7: Flame height with oxygen molar fraction at flow velocity 20cm/s

4.

Flame Ignition Position:

In low oxygen concentration experiments the ignition is initiated at a point away from the fuel supply axis and then spread along the whole area spherically. 0.1
Flame Starting poisition heght (cm)

0.08 0.06 0.04 0.02 0 11 11.5 12 12.5

Oxygen Molar fraction (%)

FW @ 21%

FW @ 15%

0.6 0.2 0
Free stream air flow velocity (cm/s)

10

15

20

25

Figure 6: Flame width with free stream velocity. Two lines shown are for 21% and 15% oxygen. Unlike the flame height, flame width decreases with decrease in air flow velocity which in fact will be velocity due to forced convection and natural convection in normal gravity. In microgravity flame width tends to zero as flame velocity decreases. It is interesting to note even in high flow velocity flame width increases and becomes nearly constant. More analysis with much higher free stream velocity is needed for knowing dependency over flow velocity. Flame height dependency over oxygen molar fraction is shown in figure 7. Near extinction limit flame drops to zero very steeply as well increasing oxygen concentration flame height tends to become constant.

Figure 8: Flame starting position with oxygen molar fraction at flow velocity 20cm/s. This is a very common situation for ignition in microgravity, especially at conditions near to ignition limit in high flow rate condition as well as in quiescent environment. In this, the pyrolized gas as well as the heat due to the electrical energy generated in the core resides near the axis for a relatively long period, increasing ignition delay period and the ignition occurs. This can be attained only in microgravity, which would be the state requiring the smallest energy input that would initiate ignition among the different types of ignition modes. Jajoo, Shigeta & Fujita has shown the experimentally ignition away from the wire. [1] From the figure 8 it can be seen that as we move towards the extinction limit flame ignition point started to lift up from fuel supply axis and becomes constant very near to extinction. To study this phenomenon we need more experimental results.

Conclusion: A axisymmetric steady flame study is shown above these results have good match with experimental values as well theoretical data give good insight on flame ignition and flame temperature behavior. Following conclusion can be drawn from above studies: 1. Axisymmetric flame gives quite good results comparatively to experimental values with cellulose fuel on flammability map. Temperature profile can be used to find extinction limit as they behave very steeply near the extinction. Flame structure profiles can be used to find fundamental oxygen limit for ignition as it seems to look like mirror image of flammability map but a more study is required in this area. Near the extinction flame ignition process in microgravity occurs far away from fuel supply point but in higher oxygen concentration ignition starts very near to fuel supply point. A wide and general study is required to setup a relationship between the two.

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2. 3.

4.

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