Diagnosis of the behavior characteristics of natural gas jet

We analyzed natural gas fuel (Methane, CH4) jet at STP (standard temperature and pressure) using a commercial program, ANSYS CFX release 11.0, and compared the results with experimental ones obtained by using shadowgraph method. The combined MCM(multi-component model) and k-epsilon turbulence model is used in the simulation. Injection pressure is selected as a main parameter in both experimental and numerical study. In the analysis, longer jet tip penetration was measured each time after start of injection for high injection pressure. Also, the process of mixture formation before combustion was examined by comparing the experimental and the numerical results on the behavior of jet and ambient gas flow. It was found that the experimental and the numerical results are consistent with each other. Further, the use commercial CFX program for the analysis of the macro jet behavior characteristics such as jet tip penetration, and flow of ambient gas can be recommended. In particular, in the analysis of the jet development process it is important to investigate the mixture formation by the interaction between the injected fuel and ambient gas.