Experimental Measurement of Laminar Flame Velocities of LPG–Air Mixtures with Cylindrical Flame Tube Method

This paper reports an experimental work related to measurement of laminar flame speeds of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) (Indian domestic grade) against calibrated LPG fuel (70% propane + 30% n-butane). The measurements were carried out on in-house developed cylindrical flame tube apparatus. The flame speed was calculated by measuring the distance propagated by flame front of a known test length on flame tube. The reported work also brings out the partial automation feature that was added to the existing flame tube apparatus, which lead to determination of flame speed electronically. The average flame speed of respective gaseous fuels was measured on manual basis (using stop watch) and also through photocells (LDR sensors). The error in measurements was found to be well within 2% and quite satisfactory. The experimentally obtained values were compared against literature to address the gap.