Impact of Turbulent Flow and Mean Mixture Fraction Results on Mixing Model Behavior in Transported Scalar PDF Simulations of Turbulent Non-premixed Bluff Body Flames

Numerical simulation results are presented for three turbulent jet diffusion flames, stabilized behind a bluff body (Sydney Flames HM1-3). Interaction between turbulence and combustion is modeled with the transported joint-scalar PDF approach. The focus of the study is on the impact of the quality of simulation results in physical space on the behavior of two micro-mixing models in composition space: the Euclidean Minimum Spanning Tree (‘EMST’) model and the modified Curl coalescence dispersion (‘CD’) model. Profiles of conditional means and variances of thermo-chemical quantities, conditioned on the mixture fraction, are discussed in the recirculation region and in the neck zone behind. The impact of the flow and mixing fields in physical space on the mixing model behavior in composition space is strong for the CD model and increases as the turbulence – chemistry interaction becomes stronger. The EMST conditional profiles, on the contrary, are hardly affected.     

Simulation of bluff body stabilized flows with hybrid RANS and PDF method

The motivation of this study is to investigate the turbulence–chemistry interactions by using probability density function (PDF) method. A consistent hybrid Reynolds Averaged Navier–Stokes (RANS)/PDF method is used to simulate the turbulent non-reacting and reacting flows. The joint fluctuating velocity–frequency–composition PDF equation coupled with the Reynolds averaged density, momentum and energy equations are solved on unstructured meshes by the Lagrangian Monte Carlo (MC) method combined with the finite volume (FV) method. The simulation of the axisymmetric bluff body stabilized non-reacting flow fields is presented in this paper. The calculated length of the recirculation zone is in good agreement with the experimental data. Moreover, the significant change of the flow pattern with the increase of the jet-to-coflow momentum flux ratio is well predicted. In addition, comparisons are made between the joint PDF model and two different Reynolds stress models. The project supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (50506028), and Action Scheme for Invigorating Education Towards the twenty-first century.     

Large Eddy Simulations of the Darmstadt Turbulent Stratified Flames with REDIM Reduced Kinetics

Turbulent stratified combustion is often found in practical combustion devices, however, for large eddy simulations (LES) of it is still a challenge. In the present work, LES of the Darmstadt turbulent stratified flame (TSF) cases are conducted. In total, one isothermal flow case A-i2 and four reacting cases with different combinations of stratification and shear, i.e., A-r, C-r, E-r, G-r cases, are simulated. The employed sub-grid scale (SGS) combustion model is the REDIM-PFDF model, in which the chemical kinetics is reduced into a two-dimensional chemistry look-up table by the reaction-diffusion manifolds (REDIM) method, which performs a model reduction based on the coupling of the chemical kinetics with molecular transport. The fluctuation of scalars within the LES filter volume is modeled by the presumed filtered density function (PFDF). The overall good agreement of the statistics of velocity, temperature and species with the experimental data demonstrates the capability of the REDIM-PFDF model for TSF. Additionally, the probability distributions of the alignment angle, α, between the reaction layer and mixing layer, are analyzed in detail. It is shown that the probability distributions of the alignment angel vary with the axial distance from the jet nozzle. It also reveals that, with a stronger turbulence, the stratification effect can be weakened and the probability difference for finding ‘back-supported’ and ‘front-supported’ flame modes tends to decrease.     

Modeling of the Joint PDF of a Scalar and Its Gradient in Turbulent Mixing

A joint probability distribution function of a conservative scalar (mixture fraction) and its gradient is predicted numerically. Statistical moments of this function are compared to their approximations, direct numerical simulation data, and also to the results obtained by simplified models for a conditional rate of scalar dissipation, the surface density function, and the one-point PDF of scalar fluctuation under homogeneous isotropic turbulence. The results allow to evaluate the performance of existing statistical micromixing models.     

Transported PDF Modelling of a High Velocity Bluff-Body Stabilised Flame (HM2) Using Detailed Chemistry

A transported probability density function (PDF) approach closed at the joint scalar level was used to model a bluff body stabilised turbulent diffusion flame (HM2) investigated experimentally by Masri and co-workers. The current effort extends a previous study of HM1 (Re?=?15,800) to a flame with a higher degree of local extinction (Re?=?23,900). The impact of an algebraic model that accounts for local Damköhler number effects on the time-scale ratio of scalar to mechanical turbulence is also evaluated along with the impact of improved thermochemistry. The computations have been performed using a hybrid Monte Carlo/finite volume algorithm and a systematically reduced H/C/N/O mechanism featuring 300 reactions, 20 solved and 28 steady-state species. The joint scalar PDF equations were solved using moving particles in a Lagrangian framework and the velocity field was closed at the second moment level. The redistribution terms were modelled using the Generalized Langevin model of Haworth and Pope. Results show that scalar fields are reproduced with encouraging accuracy and that the revised time scale model improves agreement with experimental data. A high sensitivity to the NO chemistry was observed and encouraging agreement was obtained for the first two moments following adoption of updated reaction rates proposed in an earlier study.     

Simulations of Turbulent Non-Premixed Counterflow Flames with First-Order Conditional Moment Closure

Simulations of turbulent CH₄-air counterflow flames are presented, obtained in terms of zero and two-dimensional first-order Conditional Moment Closure (CMC) to study the flame structure and extinction limits. The CMC equation with detailed chemistry is solved without the need for operator splitting, while the accompanying flow field is determined using a commercial CFD software employing a Reynolds stress turbulence model and additional transport equations for the turbulent scalar flux and for the mean scalar dissipation rate. Two detailed chemical mechanisms and different conditional scalar dissipation rate models have been examined and small differences were found.The first-order CMC captures the overall structure of the counterflow flame accurately for the unconditional averages. The calculated conditional averages behave as if the scalar dissipation rate were under-predicted, although a comparison with measurement of the conditional scalar dissipation rate is reasonable. The calculated extinction velocity is found to be much higher than the experimental value, but the trend of increasing extinction velocity with air dilution of the fuel stream is captured well. The discrepancies with the data are mostly attributed to the neglect of conditional fluctuations.     

Scalar Dissipation Rate Transport in the Context of Large Eddy Simulations for Turbulent Premixed Flames with Non-Unity Lewis Number

The effects of global Lewis number Le on the statistical behaviour of the unclosed terms in the transport equation of the Favre-filtered scalar dissipation rate (SDR) Ñ _c have been analysed using a Direct Numerical Simulation (DNS) database of freely propagating statistically planer turbulent premixed flames with Le ranging from 0.34 to 1.2. The DNS data has been explicitly filtered to analyse the statistical behaviour of the unclosed terms in the SDR transport equation arising from turbulent transport T ₁, density variation due to heat release T ₂, scalar-turbulence interaction T ₃, reaction rate gradient T ₄, molecular dissipation (?D ₂) and diffusivity gradients f(D) in the context of Large Eddy Simulations (LES). It Le has significant effects on the magnitudes of T ₁, T ₂, T ₃, T ₄, (?D ₂) and f(D). Moreover, both qualitative and quantitative behaviours of the unclosed terms T ₁, T ₂, T ₃, T ₄, (?D ₂) and f(D) are found to be significantly affected by the LES filter width Δ, which have been explained based on a detailed scaling analysis. Both scaling analysis and DNS data suggest that T ₂, T ₃, T ₄, (?D ₂) and f(D) remain leading order contributors to the SDR \(\tilde {{N}}_{c} \) transport for LES. The scaling estimates of leading order contributors to the SDR \(\tilde {{N}}_{c} \) transport has been utilised to discuss the possibility of extending an existing SDR model for Reynolds Averaged Navier Stokes (RANS) simulation for SDR \(\tilde {{N}}_{c} \) closure in the context of LES of turbulent premixed combustion.