The study investigated the effects of nanoparticles on the laminar diffusion flame in rectangular enclosures. The flame shape and size, temperature, velocity, fuel and oxidizer concentrations within the domain and at its outlet were the main points of interest. The problem is governed by the conservation equations for mass, momentum, energy and chemical species transport for a two-dimensional domain. The numerical simulation was done with the modified version of OpenFoam’s reacting Foam solver, which is based on the Finite Volume Method and utilizes the PIMPLE algorithm for pressure-velocity coupling. A 1-step laminar finite rate chemistry was used for the chemical reaction, and all simulations converged after 10 seconds. The nanofuel used was composed of methane and Al 2 O 3 -nanoparticles, while air was the oxidizer. The nanoparticle volume fraction, Φ was varied from 0 for pure fuel to a maximum of 0.10 for nanofuel. The domain’s aspect ratio, AR, was also varied from 1 to 5. The results show that the peak combustion temperature within the domain increased by as much as 12% with the increase in the nanoparticle volume fraction from zero to 0.1. The set of parameters that produced the highest temperature is AR = 2 and Φ = 0.02. The outlet velocities reduced as the value of Φ is increased.
Olamide et al. (Mon,) studied this question.