Adiabatic flame temperature using Python and Cantera
Objectives of the project work are finding the adiabatic flame temperature (AFT) using python coding and compare this result with Cantera library results. Then finding the effects of heat transfer loss on the AFT. In final part, finding the AFT for different alkanes and fuel types.
- Effects of equivalence ratio on AFT
In this section, methane is taken as fuel and air taken as oxidizer at atmosphere condition (P=101325 Pa, T=298.15K). Maximum AFT has been observed at stoichiometric air/fuel ratio (Phi=1). In lean combustion (phi<1), the amount of available fuel is lesser which could not produce higher AFT and opposite sense has been observed in rich combustion (phi>1). In rich condition, more intermediate species will be produced due to the insufficient oxidizer. Fig. 1 depicts the effects of equivalence ratio on AFT. This Figure also compares the AFT obtained from Python programming and Cantera library. At Phi:1.2, AFT in Cantera model is higher than the Python programming. This may be due to the assumption of incomplete oxidation species like CO, OH- and so on.
- Effects of Heat transfer loss on AFT
Fig. 2 shows the effects of H_loss on the AFT. In this model, the heat loss assumed to be the loss of available calorific value. Hence, the AFT is reduced with increasing the fraction of heat loss.
- AFT for different fuels
The AFT is increased with different bond molecule fuels. AFT (K) for CH4, C2H2 and C2H4 are 2325, 2906 and 2571 (Python) and 2220, 2539 and 2368 (Cantera) respectively. This is due to the heating value of the fuels because of the heating based on either volume or mass. Therefore, the energy density becomes higher for –yne and –ene structures.
- AFT for higher carbon molecules
Fig. 3 shows the AFT for methane, ethane and propane. AFT is increased with carbon and hydrogen atoms because of the energy density per unit volume. However, based on a mass basis, the heating value is higher for methane than propane and inverse trends observed in volume basis. Therefore, for considering a molecule, the energy is higher for chain molecules than the simple molecule fuel.
Supplementary file in google drive: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1HY5aHrT9jhX4PRW4f9VqQpz4CfWbhkI4?usp=sharing