Enhancing the flare gas/air mixing process above the flare tip is critical to optimizing flare performance in terms of emissions. A new flare tip design using an aerodynamic nozzle (such as that used in jet engines to increase thrust on takeoff) has been developed to control the flare gas exit velocity and the local mixing above the flare tip. The work described in this paper focuses on understanding the fluid mixing for the new flare tip design. The flow field of a jet injected into a crossflow is found in several systems, including combustion equipment, drying systems, quenching systems, and mixing tanks. A computational fluid dynamics (CFD) technique for simulating radial slot jet flow into crossflow has been validated with experimental results. Sets of experimental data were obtained from an experimental setup, which was designed and built in our laboratory. A hotwire anemometer was used to obtain the measurements of the radial velocity profiles at different axial positions and the centerline velocity profiles that are produced from the impingement of these axial profiles of velocity. A comparison between the simulation velocity profiles and experimental data was performed, and good agreement between the profiles was clearly observed. The obtained data showed that the centerline velocities were increased significantly just after the injection plane of the radial slot due to the reduction of cross-sectional area available for the flow.
This work investigates the non-catalyzed supercritical methanol (SCM) process for continuous biodiesel production. The lab-scale setup was designed and used for biodiesel production in the temperature range of 520–650 K and 83–380 bar with an oil-to-methanol molar ratio ranging from 1:5 to 1:45. The experiments were performed in the coiled plug flow tubular reactor. The volumetric flow rate of the methanol/oil ranged from 0.1–10 mL/min. This work examines a new reactor technology involving preheating and pre-mixing of the methanol/oil mixture to reduce setup cost and increase biodiesel yield under the same reaction conditions. Work performed showed that FAME’s yield increased rapidly with temperature and pressure above the methanol critical points (i.e., 513 K and 79.5 bar). The best methyl-ester yield using this reaction technology was 91% at 590 K temperature and 351 bars with an oil-to-methanol ratio of 39 and a 15-min residence time. Furthermore, the kinetics of the free catalyst transesterification process was studied in supercritical methanol under different reaction conditions.
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