High-pressure soot formation and flame stability characteristics were studied experimentally in laminar diffusion flames. For the former, radially resolved soot volume fraction and temperature profiles were measured in axisymmetric co-flow laminar diffusion flames of pre-vaporized n-heptane-air, undiluted ethylene-air, and nitrogen and carbon dioxide diluted ethylene-air at elevated pressures. Abel inversion was used to re-construct radially resolved data from the line-of-sight spectral soot emission measurements. For the latter, flame extinction strain rate was measured in counterflow laminar diffusion flames of C_1-4 alcohols and hydrocarbon fuels of n-heptane, n-octane, iso-octane, toluene, Jet-A, and biodiesel.

The luminous flame height, as marked by visible soot radiation, of the nitrogen- and helium-diluted n-heptane and nitrogen- and carbon dioxide-diluted ethylene flames stayed constant at all pressures. In pure ethylene flames, flame heights initially increased with pressure, but changed little above 5 atm. The maximum soot yield as a function of pressure in nitrogen-diluted n-heptane diffusion flames indicate that n-heptane flames are slightly more sensitive to pressure than gaseous alkane hydrocarbon flames at least up to 7 atm. Ethylene's maximum soot volume fractions were much higher than those of ethane and n-heptane diluted with nitrogen (fuel to nitrogen mass flow ratio is about 0.5). Pressure dependence of the peak carbon conversion to soot, defined as the percentage of fuel's carbon content converted to soot, was assessed and compared to previous measurements with other gaseous fuels. Maximum soot volume fractions were consistently lower in carbon dioxide-diluted flames between 5 and 15 atm but approached similar values to those in nitrogen-diluted flames at 20 atm. This observation implies that the chemical soot suppression effect of carbon dioxide, previously demonstrated at atmospheric pressure, is also present at elevated pressures up to 15 atm, but fades off beyond 15 atm.

In flame stability experiments, the extinction strain rates increased with decreasing dilution. In general, the fuels with higher carbon number and fuels with more compact structures were found to be more prone to extinction. Counterflow laminar diffusion flames established at the impingement of reactants with a top-hat (axially uniform) velocity profile were found to be more resistant to extinction than those with a parabolic exit velocity profile. Multiple solutions to the flame stability were observed for certain hydrocarbons.