Heat Transfer and Emission Characteristics of Impinging Rich Methane and Ethylene Jet Flames

Flame impingement heat transfer has widespread industrial and domestic applications and attaining high heat flux as well as low emission of pollutants is the important prerequisite for all such applications. In this article, the heat transfer and emission characteristics of a laminar flame jet impinging on a flat target plate have been investigated experimentally. The effect of reactant jet Reynolds number, equivalence ratio and burner to plate separation distance on the average heat flux, and emissions of CO and NO_x are studied using methane and ethylene fuels. Results indicate that the heat flux is maximized under certain operating conditions of jet Re, equivalence ratio, and separation distance between the burner and the target. Fuel type is found to have an effect on the heat transfer rate because of the varying luminosity of the flame with different fuels. Operating regimes that produce lower emission of pollutants are also identified. Findings of this article have direct industrial relevance to flame impingement heat transfer applications that have small target plate-to-burner port diameter ratios.