MCL241

ENERGY SYSTEMS AND TECHNOLOGIES

Krishnakant Agrawal (Assistant PROFESSOR)

Dept. of MECHANICAL ENGINEERING

Lecture 4
Combustion: A pre-historic discovery

https://in.pinterest.com/pin/146507794100439642/?lp=true

▪ Used originally for heating, cooking and protection from wild animals
▪ Helped humans to form communities and migrate, in development of brain
▪ Ushered Bronze and Iron age by making metal extraction possible
▪ It helped in agriculture, pasteurization and in curing diseases like the great plague
Ultimately giving rise to great civilizations and other technological revolutions
Combustion applications
Mobility: Almost all of Land transport, Aviation, Marine and Space exploration
Power Generation: Coal power plants, Gas turbines, Diesel Generators, Waste
heat or biomass power. Auxilliary power in transport applications
Industry: Earthmoving equipment, Mining, Pumps etc. (all using IC engines)
Domestic/Residential: Heating, Cooking, Worship. Even used for heating of
International Space Station (ISS) and many special facilities. IC engines for
electric generators, Lawnmowers, Snow Blowers, Power tools
Process Industry: Production of iron, steel, glass, ceramics, cement, carbon
black, and refined fuels through thermal heating processes. Ceramic materials
by self-propagating high-temperature synthesis (SHS) processes. Combustion
synthesis of nanosize powders, silicon substrates for electronics etc.
Construction: Controlled explosions for excavations, demolition
Warfare: Solid propellants for gun and artillery propulsion systems, detonators
Disposal: Incineration of waste/hazardous material
And unintentional ones’ also: “A man, after cleaning his car seats with
alcohol, sets himself (and the car) on fire while lighting a cigarette”
 Why we like fossil fuels? Ju, Y. and Maruta, K. (2011)

CERFACS_summer_school_2017

Gasoline weighs approximately 30-60 kg in fuel tank, and releases approximately

45 kJ/g. To keep fuel mass < 100 kg, need fuel to release at least 10 kJ/g

Energy density matters!

How many
physics
involved in
a candle
flame ?
Fuels

Understanding combustion: H S Mukunda

Gaseous Fuel Properties: Heat, temperature
Maximilian Lackner “Handbook of Combustion Vol.3”
Gaseous Fuel Properties: Heat, temperature
• Molar Weight, Specific Heat Capacity 𝐶𝑃, 𝑚𝑖𝑥 = ෍ 𝐶𝑝𝑖 𝑑𝑛𝑖 function of temperature
𝑖
𝑃 𝑅𝑢 𝐽
• Density, Gas Constant 𝜌=
𝑅𝑇
, 𝑅=
𝑀𝑊
𝑀𝑊𝑚𝑖𝑥 = σ𝑖 𝑀𝑊𝑖 𝑑𝑛𝑖 𝑅𝑢 = 8314
𝐾𝑔. 𝐾

• Heating Values 𝐻𝐻𝑉𝑚𝑖𝑥 = ෍ 𝐻𝐻𝑉𝑖 𝑑𝑛𝑖 𝐿𝐻𝑉𝑚𝑖𝑥 = ෍ 𝐿𝐻𝑉𝑖 𝑑𝑛𝑖

𝑖 𝑖

• Thermal Conductivity: Important for heat transfer in flames

• Viscosity: Important for friction estimation and momentum conservation in flames

Gaseous Fuel Properties: Chemical Kinetics
• Ignition Temperature, Ignition Limits, Laminar Flame Velocity
• Methane Number: Similar to octane number, fixes knocking tendency of gaseous
fuels in an engine

Ignition Limits Flame speed Autoignition

• Some basic physics to correlate with these trends…….

Liquid Fuel Properties
• Derived by refining crude petroleum, containing small quantities of sulfur, oxygen, nitrogen,
vanadium, other trace metals, and impurities such as water and sediment
• Mixtures of hydrocarbons such as paraffin-based, naphthene- or asphaltic-based (saturated
ring-structured), aromatic-based (unsaturated, ring-structured), or mixed

A modern refinery

Maximilian Lackner “Handbook of Combustion Vol.3”

Liquid vapor flammability
Heating liquid fuel to
achieve combustion
conditions

Image: Teng et al, 2016.

SAE International Journal
of Fuels and Lubricants,
9(3), pp.603-611.

Air

Vapor-Air
mixture

Liquid
Liquid Fuel Properties
• Density: defined at 15oC, and Specific Gravity – ratio
to water density at 4oC
• Viscosity: decreases with temperature for liquids,
definition always with temperature. Affects
atomization and vaporization of fuel spray;
Preheating helps..
• Pour Point: lowest temperature at which the fuel can
be pumped through the fuel system, 2oC above the
solidification point
• Cloud Point: Wax crystals in the fuel (paraffin base)
begin to settle out, resulting in the fuel filter clogging,
typically 4–7oC above the pour point
• Flash Point: lowest temperature at which it can
vaporize to form an ignitable mixture in air.
• Fire point when combustion is self sustaining. Flash
and fire points different than self (auto) ignition.
Solid Fuels

• Apart from fossils, major source is biomass

(forest, agriculture) and also opportunity
fuels, waste derived fuels
• Key property: Density and calorific value
• Proximate analysis to find volatile matter,
ash and water content
• Ultimate analysis to
find the atomic ratios

Maximilian_Lackner “Combustion”
Solid Fuels
Solid/Liquid propellants
Liquid Propellants: Regulation by valves
• Air breathing propulsion Or (non-air) self contained combustion carrying own oxidizer
• Liquified oxygen (cryogenic, boiling point -183oC) or liquids having excess oxygen as
nitric acid (HNO3), red fuming nitric acid (RFNA), nitrogen tetroxide (N2O4)
• Hydrazine (N2H4) can exothermally decompose itself (at temperature above 600oC)
into ammonia, nitrogen and hydrogen: used in space thrusters, use of catalyst for
decomposition at lower temperatures
• Unsymmetric dimethyl hydrazine (N2H2(CH3)2) leads to hypergolic (ultra-fast self-
initiated) ignition with nitric acid and nitrogen tetroxide – No igniter needed, used for
Apollo mission in lunar module engine taking off rocket from the moon side
• Liquid oxygen is not hypergolic, liquid fluorine hypergolic with all fuels (however toxic)
• Liquid hydrogen fuel, cryogenic as boiling point -253oC (20 K), excellent fuel due to
high energy density, used with liquid oxygen but needs more care for lower temp.
Solid Propellants: Special techniques for rate control
• Composite: Only physical continuity, no molecular level mixing,
polymer added with oxidizer particles,
• Double base: Molecular level mixing of fuel and oxidizer,
nitrocellulose mixed with liquid nitroglycerine and other
ingredients and extruded or moulded in gel
Explosives Name Formula
MW DEf (kJ/m
(g/mol) ol)
CO 28 -111.8
CO2 44 -393.5
H2O 18 -240.6
Nitroglycerin C3H5N3O9 227 -333.66
RDX C3H6N6O6 222 +83.82
HMX C4H8N8O8 296 +104.77
PETN C5H8N4O12 316 -514.63
TNT C7H5N3O6 227 -54.39
TETRYL C7H5N5O8 287 +38.91

• Strength dependent on the amount

Name Composition Formula
of product gases available for AMATOL 80/20 Ammonium nitrate/TNT C0.62H4.44N2.26O3.53
expansion: TNT produces 10 moles ANFO 94/6 Ammo. nitrate/#2 Diesel oil C0.365H4.713N2.000O3.0
products per mole of reactant COMP A-3 91/9 RDX/WAX C1.87H3.74N2.46O2.46
• Also important is combustion speed COMP B-3 64/36 RDX/TNT C6.851H8.750 N7.650O9.3
for rapid pressure buildup 91/5.3/2.1/1.6 RDX/Di(2-
COMP C-4 ethyhexyl)sebacate/Polyisobutyl C1.82H3.54N2.46O2.51
• Oxygen Balance (OB), O available for ene/Motor Oil
reacting with H, C, N in the molecule DYNAMITE 75/15/10 RDX/TNT/Plasticizers

https://fas.org/man/dod-101/navy/docs/es310/chemstry/chemstry.htm