Flameless combustion of wood: charring and heat release characteristics

Introduction. The article presents the results of a research on the two stages of thermal decomposition of timber. The first stage of thermal decomposition is flame combustion, which is followed by a transition to flameless combustion due to the formation of a char layer on the surface of wood. The flameless process is accompanied not only by heterogeneous combustion, but, at least, three reactions: pyrolysis, thermal oxidative destruction of wood and oxidation of resulting coke.
Goals and objectives. The goal is to identify the criteria of charring and heat release under the influence of an external radiative heat flux on samples of coniferous and deciduous species of wood using a standard flowthrough calorimeter with a focus on flameless combustion.
Methods. A standard OSU flow-through calorimeter, produced by Atlas (USA), was used to identify heat release characteristics under the influence of external radiative heat fluxes that had the density of 20, 35 and 52 kW/m². The lower limit of heat, released in the complete combustion of samples, that had a char layer, was identified using bomb calorimeter C-5000.
Results. The co-authors analyzed the charring process and characteristics of heat release using samples of wood species that were 10 and 25 cm thick. Wood samples were exposed to combustion under the influence of an external radiative heat flux that had the density of 20, 35 and 52 kW/m² subsequent to the results of tests, conducted using the OSU calorimeter. The co-authors evaluated the charring velocity and the coke layer thickness for the cases of flame and flameless combustion; efficient combustion heat release and the combustion completeness coefficient, as well as the sample shrinkage. The co-authors demonstrated that a transition from flame combustion to heterogeneous combustion occurs upon completion of the quasi-neutral burning of wood samples, which corresponds to the final point of heat release velocity curves and marks a transition from the behaviour of a thermally thick material to that of a thermally thin material.
Conclusion. The obtained experimental data allow to forecast a change in the physical and heat engineering properties, characteristics of heat release in the processes of flame and flameless combustion of different wood species with account taken of the char layer formed on its surface under the influence of various heat fluxes.

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