Liquid Fuel Combustion

Dr. W. Hallett

     The ignition and combustion of liquid fuels plays a major role in Diesel engines, gas turbines and industrial burners. Liquid fuels are usually burned as sprays of small liquid droplets, the droplets first evaporating to produce a cloud of vapour which then burns in the gas phase. We have been engaged in research on liquid droplet combustion processes for a number of years, beginning with work on the ignition of pure hydrocarbons which resulted in the development of a numerical model for droplet ignition and a databank of reaction kinetic data for a number of fuels. This was then extended into the hitherto unexplored area of mixture ignition, with experiments on two-component mixtures and modelling of multi-component fuels. Since many practical combustion processes (Diesel engines, gas turbines) take place at high pressure, development of a high-pressure droplet model followed, together with a series of experiments in a pressure chamber.

     Our present efforts are focussed on the modelling of complex mixtures such as commercial fuels. Although commercial fuels such as gasoline and Diesel oil are mixtures containing large numbers of components, there are presently no methods available to model them. We have been using a relatively new technique called continuous thermodynamics to develop droplet models which for the first time give a realistic simulation of commercial fuels. We have recently applied this technique to model alternative fuels such as biomass pyrolysis oils and biodiesel.

     For further information, follow the links:

Combustion of liquid mixtures    Ignition at high pressure

Publications

Hallett, W.L.H., Beauchamp-Kiss, S. Evaporation of Single Droplets of Ethanol-Fuel Oil Mixtures. Fuel 89, 2496-2504, 2010.

Hallett, W.L.H., Clark, N. A., A model for the evaporation of biomass pyrolysis oil droplets, Fuel 85, 532-544, 2006.

Abdel-Qader, Z., Hallett, W.L.H., The role of liquid mixing in evaporation of complex multicomponent mixtures: modelling using continuous thermodynamics, Chem. Eng. Science 60, 1629-1640, 2005.

Hallett, W.L.H., A simple model for the vaporization of droplets with large numbers of components, Combustion and Flame 121, 334-344, 2000.

Lippert, A.M., Stanton, D.W., Rutland, C.J., Hallett, W.L.H., Reitz, R., Multi-dimensional simulation of diesel engine cold start with advanced physical submodels, Int. J. Engine Research 1, 1-27, 2000.

Tamim, J., Hallett, W.L.H.: A continuous thermodynamics model for multicomponent droplet vaporization. Chem. Eng. Science 50, 2933-2942, 1995.

Hallett, W.L.H.: Comment on "Ignition of blended-fuel droplet in high-temperature atmosphere", by Takei, Tsukamoto and Niioka, Combustion and Flame 96, 186-187 1994.

Ruszalo, R., Hallett, W.L.H., A model for the autoignition of single liquid droplets at high pressure, Combustion Science and Technology 86, 183, 1992.

Hallett, W.L.H., Ricard, M.-A., Calculations of the auto-ignition of liquid hydrocarbon mixtures as single droplets, Fuel 71, 225-229, 1992.

Bergeron, C.A., Hallett, W.L.H.: Autoignition of single droplets of two-component liquid fuels, Combustion Science and Technology, 65, 181-194, 1989.

Bergeron, C.A., Hallett, W.L.H.: Ignition characteristics of liquid hydrocarbon fuels as single droplets, Can. J. Chem. Eng., 67, 142-149, 1989.

Recent Conference Papers

Hallett, W.L.H., Beauchamp-Kiss, S., Legault, N., Modelling Alternative Liquid Fuels with Continuous Thermodynamics, Combustion Inst. Canadian Sect. Spring Meeting 2008, pp. 188-193.

Sari, A., Hallett, W.L.H., Evaporation of biomass pyrolysis oil as single droplets, Combustion Inst. Canadian Sect. Spring Meeting 2006, pp. H1-1 - 6.

Hallett, W.L.H., Clark, N.A., White, M. Evaporation of biomass pyrolysis oil droplets II, Combustion Inst. Canadian Sect. Spring Meeting 2003, pp. 41.1 - 41.6.

Hallett, W.L.H., Clark, N.A., Evaporation of biomass pyrolysis oil droplets, Combustion Inst. Canadian Sect. Spring Meeting 2002, pp. 44.1 - 44.6.

Abdel-Qader, Z., Hallett, W.L.H.*, The role of liquid mixing in evaporation of complex multicomponent mixtures: modelling using continuous thermodynamics II, Combustion Inst. Canadian Sect. Spring Meeting 2001, pp. 32.1 - 32.6.

Hallett, W.L.H.*, Grimwood, C.J., A simple continuous mixture droplet evaporation model with multiple distribution functions, Combustion Inst. Canadian Sect. Spring Meeting 2001, pp. 31.1 - 31.6.

Lippert, A.M., Stanton, D.W., Reitz, R.D., Rutland, C.J., Hallett, W.L.H., Investigating the effect of spray targeting and impingement on diesel engine cold start, Soc. Auto. Engineers paper 2000-01-0269, SAE 2000 World Congress, March 2000.

Abdel-Qader, Z., Hallett, W.L.H., The role of liquid mixing in evaporation of complex multicomponent mixtures: modelling using continuous thermodynamics, Combustion Inst. Canadian Sect. Spring Meeting 2000, pp. 42-1 - 42-6

Hallett, W.L.H., Multicomponent droplet ignition using continuous thermodynamics, Combustion Inst. Canadian Sect. Spring Meeting 1998, pp. 9-16 - 9-20.

Hallett, W.L.H., An assessment of quasi-steady models of droplet ignition, Combustion Inst. Canadian Sect. Spring Meeting 1997, pp. 4-6 - 4-10.

Hallett, W.L.H., A simple quasi-steady droplet evaporation model using continuous thermodynamics, Canadian Sect. Spring Meeting 1997, pp. 4-21 - 4-25.

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Last update: 13 August 2010