Canola methyl ester (CME) is a biofuel that is a renewable alternative energy resource and is produced by the transesterification\r\nof canola oil. The objective of this study was to document the effects of turbulence on the combustion characteristics of blends\r\nof CME and No 2 diesel fuel in a partially-premixed flame environment. The experiments were conducted with mixtures of prevaporized\r\nfuel and air at an initial equivalence ratio of 7 and three burner exit Reynolds numbers, 2700, 3600, and 4500. Three\r\nblends with 25, 50, and 75% volume concentration of CME were studied. The soot volume fraction was highest for the pure diesel\r\nflames and did not change significantly with Reynolds number due to themutually compensating effects of increased carbon input\r\nrate and increased air entrainment as the Reynolds number was increased. The global NOx emission index was highest and the\r\nCO emission index was the lowest for the pure CME flame, and varied non-monotonically with biofuel content in the blend The\r\nmean temperature and the NOx concentration at three-quarter flame height were generally correlated, indicating that the thermal\r\nmechanism of NOx formation was dominant in the turbulent biofuel flames also.
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