Experimental investigation on varying flame characteristics of benzoic resin solid fuel pellets

This paper discusses about the varying flame characteristics of a solid fuel known as benzoic resin as a function of surface temperature and time. Benzoic resin is a naturally occurring biomass and the solid fuel is synthesized using different species of tree bark from the genus Styrax. Hence, an induction heating steel plate fitted with liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) flame ignitor was employed to evaluate these characteristics. Furthermore, a mathematical model is developed to estimate and predict the changing flame behavior of benzoic resin solid fuel. Experiments were executed for different heating surface temperatures such as 70 degrees C, 110 degrees C, 130 degrees C, 160 degrees C, 180 degrees C, 210 degrees C, 240 degrees C, and 270 degrees C. The experimental results revealed that there was a change in the flame behavior at 70 degrees C and 110 degrees C surface temperatures. The nature of the flames were transition and turbulent, but the laminar flame was detected only at the induction heating surface temperatures of 160 degrees C and 270 degrees C. Also, the laminar flame angle is 90 degrees under uniform surface heat flux. Moreover, increase in heat release rate was observed for increasing combustion time. (c) 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.