Authors : R.S. Lebelo and B.R. Mabuza
Abstract: Spontaneous combustion in stockpiles of combustible materials is due to exothermic chemical reaction taking place within the system, where the trapped oxygen reacts automatically with the material containing carbon or hydrocarbons. The chemical reaction results with heat as one of the products. Should the rate of heat production exceed that of heat release to the ambient, the system’s temperature increases rapidly and may lead to thermal runaway that ultimately causes self-ignition. In this study, effects of kinetic parameters such as activation energy and rate of reaction on the temperature of the system are investigated. These parameters are embedded on the differential equation governing the problem. The combustion reaction results with complicated reaction mechanism that is nonlinear and as a result the nonlinear differential equation is tackled using numerical methods. Runge-Kutta-Fehlberg (RKF45) method coupled with shooting technique is used to solve the equation with the help of Maple Software.
R.S. Lebelo and B.R. Mabuza, 2017. Numerical Investigation of Thermal Stability in Media of Different Physical Geometries. Journal of Engineering and Applied Sciences, 12: 7555-7561.