Natural Gas Variability in California: Environmental Impacts and Device Performance. Combustion Modeling of Pollutant Emissions from a Residential Cooking Range

摘要

As part of a larger study of liquefied natural gas impacts on device performance and pollutant emissions for existing equipment in California, this report describes a cmoputer modeling study of a partially premixed flame issueing from a single cooktop burner port. The model consisted of a reactive computational fluid dynamics three-dimensional spatial grid and a 71-species chemical mechanism with propane combustion capability. Simulations were conducted with a simplified fuel mixture containing methane, ethane, and propane in proportions that yield properties similar to fuels distributed throughout much of California now and in recent years (baseline fuel), as well as with two variations of simulated liquefied natural gas blends. A variety of simulations were conducted with baseline fuel to explore the effect of several key parameters on pollutant formation and other flame characteristics. Simulations started with fuel and air issuing through the burner port, igniting, and continuing until the flame was steady with time. Conditions at this point were analyzed to understand fuel, secondary air and reaction product flows, regions of pollutant formation, and exhaust concentrations of carbon monoxide, nitric oxide and formaldehyde. A sensitivity study was conducted, varying the inflow parameters of this baseline gs about real-world operating conditions. Flame properties responded as expected from reactive flow theory. In the simulation, carbon monoxide levels were influenced more by the mixture's inflow velocity than by the gas-to-air ratio in the mixture issuing from the inflow port. Additional simulations were executed at two inflow conditions--high heat release and medium heat release--to examine the impact of replacing the baseline gas with two mixtures representative of liquefied natural gas. Flame properties and pollutant generation rates were very similar among the three fuel mixtures.