Transient Plasma Ignition of Hydrocarbon-Air Mixtures in Pulse Detonation Engines

Wang, Fei; Jiang, Chunqi; Kuthi, A.; Gundersen, M.A.; Sinibaldi, José; Brophy, Christopher; Lee, Long

doi:10.2514/6.2004-834

Cited by 32 publications

(28 citation statements)

References 2 publications

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“…The kinetic of propane in non-thermal plasmas of atmospheric gases (N 2 /O 2 /H 2 O mixtures) is currently under study owing to various applications such as cleaning of polluted air streams [1][2][3][4][5][6], or more recently plasma assisted ignition and combustion [7][8][9][10][11][12][13]. Owing to other types of previously developed applications of low pressure plasmas, for example carbon compounds thin films production [14], numerous works have been performed in the past about electron collisions on this hydrocarbon molecule [15][16][17][18], especially on ionisation processes.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Propane dissociation in a non-thermal high-pressure nitrogen plasma

Moreau¹,

Pasquiers²,

Blin-Simiand³

et al. 2010

J. Phys. D: Appl. Phys.

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Abstract. The removal and the conversion processes of propane in N 2 /C 3 H 8 mixtures (concentration of hydrocarbon molecules up to 5500 ppm) energised by a photo-triggered discharge (homogeneous plasma) are studied at 460 mbar total pressure, both experimentally and theoretically. A self-consistent 0D discharge and kinetic model is used to interpret chromatographic measurements of propane and some by-products concentrations (hydrogen and hydrocarbons with 2 or 3 carbon atoms). It is suggested, from the comparison between measurements and model predictions, that quenching processes of nitrogen metastable states by C 3 H 8 lead to the dissociation of the hydrocarbon molecule, and are the most important processes for the removal of propane. Such a result is obtained using the quenching coefficient value previously determined by Callear and Wood for the A 3 Σ + u state [19], whereas the coefficient for collisions of the singlet states with C 3 H 8 is estimated to be 3.0x10 -10 cm 3 s -1 in order to explain the measured propane disappearance in the N 2 / C 3 H 8 mixture excited by the photo-triggered discharge. The hydrogen molecule is the measured most populated by-product and, also from the comparison between experimental results and model predictions, the most probable dissociation products of propane appear to be H 2 and C 3 H 6 . The propene molecule is also efficiently dissociated by quenching processes of N 2 states, and probably leads to the production of hydrogen atoms and methyl radicals with equivalent probabilities. The kinetic model predicts that the carbon atom is distributed amongst numerous molecules, including HCN, CH 4 , C 2 H 2 , C 2 H 4 , C 2 H 6 , C 3 H 6 .

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Propane dissociation in a non-thermal high-pressure nitrogen plasma

Moreau¹,

Pasquiers²,

Blin-Simiand³

et al. 2010

J. Phys. D: Appl. Phys.

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“…Experiments to determine the effectiveness of a transient plasma for initiating a detonation in a short tube with radial propagation of the streamers were carried out by Gundersen and co-workers [15,22,[50][51][52][53].…”

Section: (A) Deflagration-to-detonation Transition By Radial Plasma Fmentioning

confidence: 99%

Plasma-assisted ignition and deflagration-to-detonation transition

Starikovskiy

Aleksandrov

Rakitin

2012

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. A.

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Non-equilibrium plasma demonstrates great potential to control ultra-lean, ultrafast, low-temperature flames and to become an extremely promising technology for a wide range of applications, including aviation gas turbine engines, piston engines, RAMjets, SCRAMjets and detonation initiation for pulsed detonation engines. The analysis of discharge processes shows that the discharge energy can be deposited into the desired internal degrees of freedom of molecules when varying the reduced electric field, E/n, at which the discharge is maintained. The amount of deposited energy is controlled by other discharge and gas parameters, including electric pulse duration, discharge current, gas number density, gas temperature, etc. As a rule, the dominant mechanism of the effect of non-equilibrium plasma on ignition and combustion is associated with the generation of active particles in the discharge plasma. For plasma-assisted ignition and combustion in mixtures containing air, the most promising active species are O atoms and, to a smaller extent, some other neutral atoms and radicals. These active particles are efficiently produced in high-voltage, nanosecond, pulse discharges owing to electron-impact dissociation of molecules and electron-impact excitation of N 2 electronic states, followed by collisional quenching of these states to dissociate the molecules. Mechanisms of deflagration-to-detonation transition (DDT) initiation by non-equilibrium plasma were analysed. For longitudinal discharges with a high power density in a plasma channel, two fast DDT mechanisms have been observed. When initiated by a spark or a transient discharge, the mixture ignited simultaneously over the volume of the discharge channel, producing a shock wave with a Mach number greater than 2 and a flame. A gradient mechanism of DDT similar to that proposed by Zeldovich has been observed experimentally under streamer initiation.

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“…As an example, experimental results showed that transient plasma discharge resulted in shorter ignition delay and pressure rise time (typically by a factor of 3 for CtU/Air quiescent mixture [2,3,8 ] and even more for flowing pulse detonation engine ethane-air mixtures [4,8,9]). We conducted experiments in quiescent fuel air mixtures including methane, ethane, propane, butane and octane for various equivalence ratios.…”

Section: Personnel Supportedmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Substantially reduced ignition delay times (factors of 3X were typical [1][2][3], and under some flowing conditions, even more reduction [4]) and other useful results were achieved, partially by employing advanced power conditioning technology [5][6][7]. The method did not require excessive energy for implementation.…”

Section: Personnel Supportedmentioning

confidence: 99%

Energy-Efficient Transient Plasma Ignition and Combustion

Gundersen¹

2004

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Transient Plasma Ignition of Hydrocarbon-Air Mixtures in Pulse Detonation Engines

Cited by 32 publications

References 2 publications

Propane dissociation in a non-thermal high-pressure nitrogen plasma

Propane dissociation in a non-thermal high-pressure nitrogen plasma

Plasma-assisted ignition and deflagration-to-detonation transition

Energy-Efficient Transient Plasma Ignition and Combustion

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