Ignition and combustion of diluted hydrogen mixtures in a flow past an array of catalytic wires

Abstract

In this paper the catalytic combustion of a diluted hydrogen-oxygen mixture past an array of catalytic wires is numerically studied. The governing equations are transformed by using an appropriate boundary-fitted coordinate system. Using a global reaction rate of the catalytic combustion of hydrogen-oxygen mixtures valid for not very lean mixtures, the catalytic ignition and combustion is studied for a stoichiometric mixture. Auto-ignition at room temperatures can be achieved for Peclet numbers below 0.065. At larger Peclet numbers, the energy input needed per unit length of the wire and the critical wire temperature for ignition have been obtained for different values of the Peclet numbers. The conversion efficiency has been obtained for Peclet numbers up to 30.