Combustion Chamber

Description

The DRI combustion chamber is a specialized facility that has been designed and built for the open combustion of solid fuels under controlled conditions.

The combustion chamber is constructed from aluminum panels enclosing a square base (1.83 m x1.83 m) up to a height of 2.06 m.

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  Drawing of the combustion chamber.

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  The combustion chamber at the Desert Research Institute in Reno. Photo by Cathleen Allison/Nevada Momentum.

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  The combustion chamber at the Desert Research Institute in Reno. Photo by Cathleen Allison/Nevada Momentum.

Above this height, the chamber tapers down to an exhaust pipe that contains multiple sampling ports and exhausts chamber air to a roof outlet with the exhaust flow rate controlled by an exhaust fan and a variable opening for the air inlet located at the bottom of the chamber, directly below the burn platform.

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  The combustion chamber's air inlet pipe.

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  The combustion chamber's air inlet opening.

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  The combustion chamber's air smoke outlet pipe.

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  The combustion chamber's air smoke outlet opening.

The burn platform consists of a base for the weighed fuel bed, consisting of a Veritas L Series, 0.01g Precision Balance on which a 0.46-m diameter ceramic burn surface is placed.

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  Hans Moosmüller setting up fuel to burn in the combustion chamber at the Desert Research Institute in Reno. Photo by Cathleen Allison/Nevada Momentum.

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  Deep Sengupta burns fuel at the Desert Research Institute in Reno. 2018. Photo by Cathleen Allison/Nevada Momentum

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  The combustion chamber burning fuel at the Desert Research Institute in Reno. Photo by Cathleen Allison/Nevada Momentum.

This arrangement allows for continuous monitoring of fuel weight during burns.

How it works

The flow rate through the 7500-liter chamber can be set between 0 and ~1000 lpm allowing for smoke accumulation of exchange of the chamber volume within a few minutes.

Routine monitoring of the chamber exhaust includes a LI-COR LI-840A CO2/H2O Analyzer II and a Thermo Environmental Instruments 48i CO Analyzer, allowing for the routine monitoring of the modified combustion efficiency.

Additional instruments for optical, physical, and chemical aerosol characterization and sampling are added as needed for specific experiments.