Experimental investigation of laminar LPG–H2 jet diffusion flame with preheated reactants

This paper presents an experimental investigation of the effect of H2 addition on flame length, soot free length fraction (SFLF), flame radiant fraction, gas temperature and emission level in LPG–H2 composite fuel jet diffusion flame for two preheated cases namely, (i) preheated air and (ii) preheated air and fuel. Results show that the H2 addition leads to a reduction in flame length which may be caused due to an increased gas temperature. Besides this, the flame length is also observed to be reduced with increasing reactants temperature. The soot free length fraction (SFLF) increases as H2 is added to fuel stream. This might have been caused by decrease in the C/H ratio in the flame and is favorable to attenuate PAH formation rate. Interestingly, the SFLF is observed to be reduced with increasing reactants temperature that may be due to reduction in induction period of soot formation caused by enhanced flame temperature. Moreover, the decreased radiant heat fraction with hydrogen addition is pertinent with the reduction in soot concentration level. The reduction in NOx emission level with H2 addition to the fuel stream is also observed. On the contrary, NOx emission level is found to be enhanced significantly with reactant temperature that can be attributed to the increase in thermal NOx through Zeldovich mechanism.