| Understanding the factors that effect soot formation is essential to development of predictive models and the design of combustion processes that reduce the formation of particulates. Synergistic effects in flames of gas mixtures, increases in soot volume fraction that are higher than would be expected based on the soot volume fractions in the pure gas flames, have been observed in previous studies. The two isomers of butane were chosen to eliminate changes in flame carbon content, mass flow rate, and adiabatic flame temperature that are normally encountered when comparing flames of pure gases to flames of gas mixtures, and which also effect soot formation. A co-flow annular burner and a line-of-sight attenuation apparatus were used to produce radially-resolved soot volume fraction measurements. The experimental results give further insight into the sooting propensities of isobutane and n-butane, as well as their effect soot formation in ethylene and methane flames. |
