Effect of central cone-shaped bluff body on performance of premixed LPG burner

Improvement of air entrainment rate for liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) premixed burner was achieved by placing a needle rod inside a circular fuel jet nozzle. To investigate the effect of needle rod on flow entrainment, selection of experimental results together with investigation on jet characteristics using CFD are presented. The predictive quality was achieved after performing grid refinement and validation of turbulent model against existing experimental results. Two modified standard k-ε turbulent models were employed for prediction of the jets. The results indicated that the annular port created narrower jet pattern with higher degree of penetration. The momentum decay rate was significantly lower with an average of 48% at z/D = 30, for instance, corresponding to lower Reynolds shearing stress associated with jet shape upstream. This corresponded to the vorticity magnitude of the inner core that caused transport of jet momentum into the central region of the jet near the exit plane. In contrast, the circular one performed more expanded pattern together with faster decay rate. This expanded jet created limitation of air entrainment when issuing into a confined duct, while deeper penetration of the annular jet created greater entrainment. An averaged improvement of air entrainment was found at 25% for the range of firing rate between 1.8 and 4.4 kW.