Comparisons of the Uncoupled Effects of CO2 on the CH4/O2 Counterflow Diffusion Flame under High Pressure

A comprehensive numerical investigation of the uncoupled chemical, thermal, and transport effects of CO2 on the temperature of CH4/O2 counterflow diffusion flame under high pressure up to 5 atm was conducted. Three pairs of artificial species were introduced to distinguish the chemical effect, thermal effect, and the transport effect of CO2 on the flame temperature. The numerical results showed that both the chemical effect and the thermal effect of the CO2 dilution in the oxidizer side can decrease the flame temperature significantly, while the transport effect of CO2 can only slightly increase the flame temperature and can even be ignored. The reduction value of the temperature caused by the chemical effect of CO2 grows linearly, while that caused by the thermal effect increases exponentially. The RPchem and RPthermal are defined to explain the temperature reduction percentage due to the chemical effect and the thermal effect of CO2 in the total temperature reduction caused by CO2 dilution, respectively. The RPchem decreases with the increase of the pressure, the strain rate, and the CO2 dilution ratio, while the RPthermal behaves in the opposite manner. In the above conditions, the chemical effect plays a dominant role on the flame temperature reduction.