Combustor Experiments of Reacting Nano-Particle Laden Flows

An experimental study of a reacting particle-laden flow has been conducted. An optically accessible two-dimensional combustor has been designed and fabricated to investigate the potential of aluminum nanoparticles as additives for fuels in airbreathing propulsion systems. Experiments were conducted with hydrocarbon only (ethylene) and mixtures of ethylene and aluminum. The oxidation of aluminum has been studied through the emission of AlO. Planar Mie Scattering was employed to ensure that uniform dispersion of the particles was achieved. Temperature measurements inside the combustor using thermocouples have been made in order to estimate the efficiency of combustion for a variety of equivalence ratios ranging from 0.52 to 0.7, aluminum loadings ranging from 8.7 to 18.1, and combustor residence times ranging from 6 to 10.5 milliseconds. Combustion efficiencies in aluminized and nonaluminized tests were found to be similar within experimental error and in all cases efficiencies greater than 90% were measured. The results open up the possibility of using nano-aluminum additives in fuels for airbreathing propulsion. Nomenclature