Numerical Analysis of The Combustion Process Design Parameters of A Locally Made Cook Stove Burner

Abstract

The design and continuous improvement of clean, efficient and locally made cookstove burners are critical for reducing emissions and improving energy access in Nigeria. This study presents a numerical analysis of propane combustion in a locally made commercial cookstove burner using ANSYS Fluent 2022 R1. A two-dimensional model based on a co-flow, non-premixed air/fuel configuration was used to solve the governing equations of continuity, momentum, energy and species transport, and to simulate the flame structure, temperature distribution and species concentrations. Combustion kinetics were represented with a two-step global reaction mechanism, and CO₂, CO, soot and NO_x formation were computed alongside combustion efficiency. The fuel port diameter was varied from 1 to 5 mm and the fuel pressure from 1500 to 3000 Pa, comparable to regulated pressures in practical burners, while the air velocity ranged from 1.5 to 3.5 m/s at atmospheric pressure. The model was validated against experimental data from the literature, with velocity and temperature differing by less than 5%. A port diameter of 1 mm and an air inlet velocity of 2.5 m/s gave the highest flame temperature of about 2010 K. Propane was almost fully consumed within the domain, while the maximum mole fractions of CO₂, CO and soot were about 0.07, 0.132 and 0.0076 respectively. NO_x formation followed peak flame temperature, and the highest combustion efficiency of 45.50% occurred at 2500 Pa. The results show that locally made cookstoves can compete with imported ones when design parameters are optimised for better efficiency and lower emissions.