Experimental and theoretical study on the influence of temperature and humidity on the flammability limits of ethylene (R1150)

Xi Wu, Zhao Yang, Xiaoming Wang and Yulong Lin

Energy, 2013, vol. 52, issue C, 185-191

Abstract: The LFL (lower flammable limit) and UFL (upper flammable limit) of R1150 were researched experimentally on a self-made test rig according to the Chinese National Standard GB/T12474 under variable temperature and humidity conditions. Results showed that the LFL increased with the decrease of temperature, while the UFL reduced, therefore the flammable range shrank 3.42% from 55 °C to −5 °C. Another group of experiments had been carried out to test the influence of humidity on the flammable limits of R1150 at 25 °C, which presented that the LFL increased less than 0.1 and UFL reduced 0.87 in volume fraction when humidifying the air to 42.4% (relative humidity). At the same time, a new method of estimating the LFLs of general hydrocarbons was presented and the relative deviation between the calculated value and experimental datum of R1150 was as small as 0.88%. On that basis, the influence of temperature on the LFL of R1150 was estimated by adding parameter enthalpy into the computational formula, the relative errors lay in 0.35–2.54% at the temperature range from −5 °C to 55 °C. The research achievements can benefit for utilizing the hydrocarbons refrigerants in variable temperature and relative humidity.

Keywords: R1150; Flammable limit; Hydrocarbon refrigerant; Humidity; Temperature (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360544213000704
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:energy:v:52:y:2013:i:c:p:185-191

DOI: 10.1016/j.energy.2013.01.042

Access Statistics for this article

Energy is currently edited by Henrik Lund and Mark J. Kaiser

More articles in Energy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().