DOE OSTI2019
Mild ignition is a 'non-ideal' autoignition process observed at some conditions in rapid compression machine, shock tube and flow reactor experiments where flames and/or reaction fronts initiate due to non-uniformities within the test mixture. These flames/fronts can consume the entire mixture, or compression-heat the unburned gas, causing bulk ignition at times earlier than in homogeneous environments. This study numerically investigates mild ignition features using computational fluid dynamics techniques under a scenario where a small hot-spot is employed to initiate the process in a spherically-symmetric geometry. Only subsonic regimes are considered. The intent is to develop greater fundamental understandings of competing phenomena, and formulate a robust framework to quantify the perturbative behavior. Syngas blends (CO/H 2 = 80/20) are employed as the fuel, mixed with air at lean fuel loadings of phi = 0.2 and 0.5, with the initial temperatures and pressures covering 900-1120K, and 1.5-15 bar, respectively. Hot-spots ranging from 50 to 2,000 mu m in diameter are utilized with temperatures elevated from the surroundings by 1 to 90%, i.e., T hot /T 0 =1.01-1.90. Scaling arguments are derived to analyze competing processes of: (a) quenching vs. ignition, (b) extinction vs. propagation, and (c) flame consumption/forced autoignition vs. homogeneous ignition. Here, this work provides new insight into non-uniform autoignition phenomena, and discusses opportunities and challenges associated with mitigating it. In particular, scaling arguments indicate that experimental parameters could have potential to either suppress hot-spot initiated flame formation (e.g., via bath gases with high thermal diffusivity), or avert flame compression of the end gas (e.g., via lean/diluted mixtures, or bath gases with high heat capacity).