Predictive analysis of combined burner parameter effects on oxy-fuel flames

The present paper aims at studying the influence of burner parameters with a separated-jet configuration, namely nozzles diameters and separation distance between the jets, on the flame characteristics (lift-off positions of flame and flame length). The experimental layout considers the use of OH-chemiluminescence to measure the flame characteristics for different combinations of processing conditions. The predictive analysis is based on a neural computation that considers the correlations between the inputs and the outputs of a combustion system using a configuration of separated jet. The predictive analysis shows that a good agreement is found between numerical and experimental results in the case where the predictions are within the process window. The exploration of other process parameter combinations beyond that window gives less convincing results. This is mainly attributed to the fact that steady state characteristics are predicted numerically whereas it is expected experimentally that some of the burner parameter combinations can lead to an increase of the parameters characterizing the flame. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.