Primary soot particle distributions in a combustion field of 4 kw pulverized coal jet burner measured by time resolved laser induced incandescence (TiRe-LII)

To develop accurate models for the numerical simulation of coal combustion field, detailed experimental data using laser techniques, which can figure out the basic phenomena in a coal flame, are necessary. In particular, soot is one of the important intermediate substances in a coal flame. This paper is the first paper in the world reporting soot particle size distributions in a coal flame. The spatial distribution of the primary soot particle diameter were measured by the combination of the time-resolved laser induced incandescence (TiRe-LII) method and the thermophoretic sampling (TS) method. The primary soot particle diameter distribution was expressed by the log normal function based on the particle diameter measurement using SEM images obtained from the TS samples. The relative function between the signal decay ratio obtained by TiRe-LII and the primary soot particle diameter was defined based on the log normal function. Using the relative function, the spatial distributions of the primary soot particle diameter with the soot volume fraction were obtained. The results show that the small isolated soot regions instantaneously exist in the entire combustion field. This characteristics is different from spray combustion field. From the ensemble-averaged TiRe-LII images, it was found that the soot volume fraction and the primary soot particle diameter increases with increasing the height above the burner in any radial distance. It was also found that the volumetric ratio of small particles decreases with increasing radial distance at the region close to the burner exit. However, the variation of the soot particle diameter distribution along the radial direction becomes small in the downstream region. This tendency is caused by the turbulent mixing effect. It is expected that the accurate soot formation model will be developed in the near future by using the data reported in this paper.