Experimental and numerical study of the influence of initial temperature on explosion limits and explosion process of syngas-air mixtures

To study the effect of initial temperature of 30, 60, 90, and 120 °C on the explosion limits and the explosion process of the syngas-air mixtures, the explosion limits were tested by the explosive limit instrument, and the flame propagation process in the spherical pressure vessel was recorded by the high-speed camera. The ANSYS Fluent 3D software was used to simulate the explosion behavior of syngas-air mixtures. The results showed that with the increase of the initial temperature, the lower explosion limit of syngas decreased and the upper explosion limit increased, and the effect of initial temperature on the upper explosion limit of syngas was greater than that on the lower explosion limit. The flame development process in the simulation was consistent with that in the experiment, propagating outward spherically until it filled the entire container. Both experimental and numerical results presented the same trend of accelerating the flame propagation speed with the increase of initial temperature. In addition, the simulation also obtained multi-dimensional transient explosion parameters that were difficult to obtain in the experiment. The explosion process of syngas was analyzed by the explosion parameters such as temperature and pressure field in the explosion area. An increase in temperature decreased the maximum explosion pressure and shortened the time to reach the maximum explosion pressure.