Combustion characteristics of premixed H2-air in wavy microchannels for micro thermophotovoltaic applications

Combustion characteristics of premixed H2-air numerically investigated in wavy microchannels in order to examine ability of such geometries to use as heat source of a micro thermophotovoltaic system. Effect of inlet velocity, wall wave number, wave s amplitude and wall thermal conductivity studied by calculation of wall and fluid temperatures also, total efficiency of the system. According to the results, wall temperature increases by inlet velocity increasement due to flame stretch and flame transfer towards the concave areas which contrived in the walls, whereas total efficiency of the system decreases due to fuel consumption increasement. It was found that when the number of waves enhances up to 10, total efficiency of the system increases 74% in comparison with the similar flat wall micro channel. Moreover, wavy walls showed good thermal performance when heat recirculation increased by wall thermal conductivity. It caused to increase wall average temperature and total efficiency accordingly. Finally, the results showed acceptable potential of wavy micro channels for usage in the micro thermophotovoltaic systems.