A versatile set-up to study plasma / microwave sources for liquid fuel ignition

Beatrice Fragge (1) , Jérôme Sokoloff (2) , Olivier Rouzaud (1) , Olivier Pascal (2) , Mikael Orain (3)

1 DMPE, ONERA, Université de Toulouse [Toulouse]
2 LAPLACE - LAboratoire PLasma et Conversion d'Energie
3 DMPE, ONERA, Université de Toulouse [Mauzac]

Motivated by the high demand for an alternative, more reliable, high energy ignition source to reduce fuel consumption and emission in aeronautical and automotive engines, a new setup has been designed to study plasma / microwave sources. The use of a waveguide-based resonant cavity leads to very low power plasma ignition. An example in this paper shows that a plasma at atmospheric pressure can be maintained with less than 2 W input power. Such a performance is possible using the large variety of possible adjustments (resonance frequency, different kind of initiators,.. .) that this versatile setup offers. To illustrate the wide range of possible studies, another example is given and discussed : Minimum ignition energy for an ethanol droplet stream with aluminum and stainless steel initiators. The results show that the initiator material and its surface quality have an influence on the minimum ignition energy, especially for large gaps. Depending on the gap size we can get down to under 10 W entering the cavity to ignite the droplet stream.

Mots clés: Fuel Ignition; Microwave Plasma; Droplet Stream

Domaines: Sciences de l'ingénieur [physics]; Physique [physics]

Beatrice Fragge, Jérôme Sokoloff, Olivier Rouzaud, Olivier Pascal, Mikael Orain. A versatile set-up to study plasma / microwave sources for liquid fuel ignition. 2020. ⟨hal-02902498v1⟩