Numerical Study of Ethanol Suspension Combustion in Air

This paper describes a numerical simulation of a laminar flame of a premixed mixture of ethanol and air at atmospheric pressure with the addition of a suspension of ethanol droplets. The initial fuel-oxidizer ratios in the gas phase are phi(gas) = 0.844 and 1.125. With account for the fuel in the liquid phase, the total equivalence ratios are phi(tot) = 1.195 and 1.476, respectively. The calculation is performed using the method of direct numerical simulation with a reduced chemical mechanism. Motion, heating, and evaporation of droplets are determined using the Lagrange approximation. The numerical simulation results are verified using experimental data (flame cone photographs and laser-induced fluorescence data). It is revealed that all the droplets evaporate in the flame front heating region and the presence of fuel in the liquid phase strongly increases the CO concentration both in the calculation and in the experiment.