Author(s)

Leigh T. Powell, Ralph C. Aldredge

Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, University of California-Davis, Davis, CA, USA.

Present technology has been shifting towards miniaturization of devices for energy production for portable electronics. Micro-combustors, when incorporated into a micro-power generation system, create the energy desired in the form of hot gases to power such technology. This creates the need for a design optimization of the micro-combustor in terms of geometry, fuel choice, and material selection. A total of five micro-combustor geometries, three fuels, and three materials were computationally simulated in different configurations in order to determine the optimal micro-combustor design for highest efficiency. Inlet velocity, equivalence ratio, and wall heat transfer coefficient were varied in order to test a comprehensive range of micro-combustor parameters. All simulations completed for the optimization study used ANSYS Fluent v16.1 and post-processing of the data was done in CFD Post v16.1. It was found that for lean, premixed fuel-air mixtures (φ = 0.6 - 0.9) ethane (C₂H₆) provided the highest flame temperatures when ignited within the micro-combustor geometries. An aluminum oxide converging micro-combustor burning ethane and air at an equivalence ratio of 0.9, an inlet velocity of 0.5 m/s, and heat transfer coefficient of 5 W/m²-K was found to produce the highest combustor efficiency, making it the optimal choice for a micro-combustor design. It is proposed that this geometry be experimentally and computationally investigated further in order to determine if additional optimization can be achieved.

Micro-Combustor, Combustion, Computational Fluid Dynamics, Ethane, Efficiency

Powell, L. and Aldredge, R. (2016) Design Optimization of a Micro-Combustor for Lean, Premixed Fuel-Air Mixtures. Journal of Power and Energy Engineering, 4, 13-26. doi: 10.4236/jpee.2016.46003.