Mechanism analyses of pressure non-monotonic effect on flammability limits

1D, laminar premixed CH4/Air flames at elevated pressures were numerically studied to assess pressure effect on flammability limits, with attention primarily paid to maximum flame temperature loss caused by radiation, dominant chain branching and termination reactions and species profiles at different pressures. It was found that radiation heat loss effect increases with decreasing equivalence ratio, especially at the turning point showing the non-monotonic pressure effect. As pressure increases, sensitivity coefficient of main chain termination reaction H+O2+M=HO2+M changes non-monotonously, firstly increases then decreases and this chain termination reaction is gradually substituted by reaction HO2+CH3=OH+CH3O. The main reason of such change is that the relative concentration of HO2 species becomes higher than that of other species as pressure increases.