The effect of nitrogen dilution on the premixed combustion characteristics and flame structure of laminar premixed methanol-air-nitrogen mixtures are analyzed numerically based on an extended methanol oxidation mechanism. The laminar burning velocities, the mass burning fluxes, the adiabatic flame temperature, the global activation temperature, the Zeldovich number, the effective Lewis number and the laminar flame structure of the methanol-air-nitrogen mixtures are obtained under different nitrogen dilution ratios. Comparison between experiments and numerical simulations show that the extended methanol oxidation mechanism can well reproduce the laminar burning velocities for lean and near stoichiometric methanol-air-nitrogen mixtures. The laminar burning velocities and the mass burning fluxes decrease with the increase of nitrogen dilution ratio and the effect is more obvious for the lean mixture. The effective Lewis number of the mixture increases with the increase of nitrogen dilution ratio, and the diffusive-thermal instability of the flame front is decreased by the nitrogen addition. Nitrogen addition can suppress the hydrodynamic instability of methanol-air-nitrogen flames. The decrease of the mole fraction of OH and H is mainly responsible for the suppressed effect of nitrogen diluent on the chemical reaction in the methanol-air-nitrogen laminar premixed flames, and the NOx and formaldehyde emissions are decreased by the nitrogen addition.
