Inverse radiation problem of axisymmetric turbulent sooting free flame

An iteration method is extended to reconstruct the time-averaged temperature distribution in turbulent axisymmetric sooting free flame by the multi-wavelength measured data of low time-resolution outgoing emission and transmission radiation intensities. A Gaussian probability density function is used to simulate the turbulent fluctuation of temperature. The reconstruction of time-averaged temperature profile consists of three steps. First, the time-averaged spectral absorption coefficient is retrieved from the time-averaged transmissivity data by iteration method. Then the time-averaged blackbody spectral radiation intensity is estimated from the low time-resolution outgoing spectral emission radiation intensities. Finally, the time-averaged temperature and its standard deviation are approximately reconstructed from the multi-wavelength time-averaged spectral emission radiation data by the least-square method. Both exact and noisy input data have been used to test the performance of the proposed inversion method. The results show that the time-averaged temperature profiles can be estimated with good accuracy by the presented inversion method, even with noisy input data, and the standard deviation of temperature is more sensitive to the measurement errors. In the case of large temperature fluctuation, the errors of estimation for time-averaged temperature profile are large if the turbulent fluctuation is not taken into account.     

Regression fronts in random sphere packs: Application to composite solid propellant burning rate

The burning rate of a composite solid propellant may be estimated by global modeling, such as the widely used BDP model. The backbone of such models is the “mixture law” that links the propellant burning rate r_p with the burning rate of its own components, i.e., oxidizer r_ox and binder r_b. However, different laws are available in literature which all read: 1/r_p = q(ξ)/r_ox + (1 − q(ξ))/r_b, with q(ξ) a function of oxidizer volume fraction ξ. This work attempts in analyzing numerically the validity of those empirical formulations by surface regression computation. Composite propellants are modeled by a random packing of monomodal spheres and the evolution of the regression front is computed via the resolution of Hamilton–Jacobi equations. It is shown that the popular choice q(ξ) = ξ is fairly valid but only provided that burn rate ratio Z = r_ox/r_b is about 1. When Z > 1, combustion surface is no longer plane and global burning rate deviates from postulated laws. A special regime is also noticed for high rate ratio Z (typically Z > 5) because combustion then preferentially takes place through adjacent oxidizer particles. Computed results occur to be correctly modeled by percolation theory. This hints that percolation is a common feature of propellant combustion and a critical percolation threshold on volume fraction is numerically found to be about ξ_c  0.2. First validations show encouraging correlations with experimental data.     

Reconstruction of time-averaged temperature of non-axisymmetric turbulent unconfined sooting flame by inverse radiation analysis

A multi-wavelength inversion method is extended to reconstruct the time-averaged temperature distribution in non-axisymmetric turbulent unconfined sooting flame by the multi-wavelength measured data of low time-resolution outgoing emission and transmission radiation intensities. Gaussian, β and uniform distribution probability density functions (PDF) are used to simulate the turbulent fluctuation of temperature, respectively. The reconstruction of time-averaged temperature consists of three steps. First, the time-averaged spectral absorption coefficient is retrieved from the time-averaged transmissivity data by an algebraic reconstruction technique. Then, the time-averaged blackbody spectral radiation intensity is estimated from the outgoing spectral emission radiation intensities. Finally, the time-averaged temperature is approximately reconstructed from the multi-wavelength time-averaged spectral emission radiation data by the least-squares method. Noisy input data have been used to test the performance of the proposed inversion method. The results show that the time-averaged temperature distribution can be estimated with good accuracy, even with noisy input data. The accuracy of the estimation decreases with the increase of turbulent fluctuation intensity of temperature and the effects of assumed PDF on the reconstruction of temperature are small.     

Modeling nongray gas-phase and soot radiation in luminous turbulent nonpremixed jet flames

Much progress has been made in radiative heat transfer modeling with respect to treatment of nongray radiation from both gas-phase species and soot particles, while radiation modeling in turbulent flame simulations is still in its infancy. Aiming at reducing this gap, this paper introduces state-of-the-art models of gas-phase and soot radiation to turbulent flame simulations. The full-spectrum k-distribution method (Modest, M.F., 2003, Journal of Quantitative Spectroscopy & Radiative Transfer, 76, 69–83) is implemented into a three-dimensional unstructured CFD code for nongray radiation modeling. The mixture full-spectrum k-distributions including nongray absorbing soot particles are constructed from a narrow-band k-distribution database created for individual gas-phase species, and an efficient scheme is employed for their construction in CFD simulations. A detailed reaction mechanism including NO _x and soot kinetics is used to predict flame structure, and a detailed soot model using a method of moments is employed to determine soot particle size distributions. A spherical-harmonic P₁ approximation is invoked to solve the radiative transfer equation. An oxygen-enriched, turbulent, nonpremixed jet flame is simulated, which features large concentrations of gas-phase radiating species and soot particles. Nongray soot modeling is shown to be of greater importance than nongray gas modeling in sooty flame simulations, with gray soot models producing large errors. The nongray treatment of soot strongly influences flame temperatures in the upstream and the flame-tip region and is essential for accurate predictions of NO. The nongray treatment of gases, however, weakly influences upstream flame temperatures and, therefore, has only a small effect on NO predictions. The effect of nongray soot radiation on flame temperature is also substantial in downstream regions where the soot concentration is small. Limitations of the P₁ approximation are discussed for the jet flame configuration; the P₁ approximation yields large errors in the spatial distribution of the computed radiative heat flux for highly anisotropic radiation fields such as those in flames with localized, near-opaque soot regions.     

Wave dispersion and attenuation in viscoelastic isotropic media containing multiphase flow and its application

In this paper,we introduce the complex modulus to express the viscoelasticity of a medium.According to the correspondence principle,the Biot-Squirt(BISQ)equations in the steady-state case are presented for the space-frequency domain described by solid displacements and fluid pressure in a homogeneous viscoelastic medium.The effective bulk modulus of a multiphase flow is computed by the Voigt formula,and the characteristic squirt-flow length is revised for the gas-included case.We then build a viscoelastic BISQ model containing a multiphase flow.Through using this model,wave dispersion and attenuation are studied in a medium with low porosity and low permeability.Furthermore,this model is applied to observed interwell seismic data.Analysis of these data reveals that the viscoelastic parameter tanδ is not a constant.Thus,we present a linear frequency-dependent function in the interwell seismic frequency range to express tanδ.This improves the fit between the observed data and theoretical results.     

Unsteady coupling of Navier-Stokes and radiative heat transfer solvers applied to an anisothermal multicomponent turbulent channel flow

Direct numerical simulations (DNS) of an anisothermal reacting turbulent channel flow with and without radiative source terms have been performed to study the influence of the radiative heat transfer on the optically non-homogeneous boundary layer structure. A methodology for the study of the emitting/absorbing turbulent boundary layer (TBL) is presented. Details on the coupling strategy and the parallelization techniques are exposed. An analysis of the first order statistics is then carried out. It is shown that, in the studied configuration, the global structure of the thermal boundary layer is not significantly modified by radiation. However, the radiative transfer mechanism is not negligible and contributes to the heat losses at the walls. The classical law-of-the-wall for temperature can thus be improved for RANS/LES simulations taking into account the radiative contribution.     

Coherent structure extraction in turbulent channel flow using boundary adapted wavelets

We introduce boundary adapted wavelets, which are orthogonal and have the same scale in the three spatial directions. The construction thus yields a multiresolution analysis. We analyse direct numerical simulation data of turbulent channel flow computed at a friction Reynolds number of 395, and investigate the role of coherent vorticity. Thresholding of the vorticity wavelet coefficients allows us to split the flow into two parts, coherent and incoherent flows. The coherent vorticity is reconstructed from its few intense wavelet coefficients and the coherent velocity is reconstructed using Biot–Savart's law. The statistics of the coherent flow, i.e. energy and enstrophy spectra, are close to the statistics of the total flow, and moreover, the nonlinear energy budgets of the total flow are very well preserved. The remaining incoherent part, represented by the large majority of the weak wavelet coefficients, corresponds to a structureless, i.e. noise-like, background flow whose energy is equidistributed.     

Influence of turbulent fluctuation on reconstruction of temperature profile in axisymmetric free flames

An iteration method is extended to analyze the influences of the turbulent fluctuation on the reconstruction of Reynolds time-averaged temperature in turbulent axisymmetric free flames when the temperature profiles are retrieved by the low time-resolution data of outgoing emission and transmission radiation intensities. A simplified probability density function is used to simulate the turbulent fluctuation of temperature and absorption coefficient. The effects of turbulent fluctuating intensities on the estimation of the Reynolds time-averaged temperature and absorption coefficient are examined. The results show that the effects of turbulent fluctuation on the reconstruction of time-averaged absorption coefficient are not significant. In the case of weak turbulent fluctuation, the influences of turbulent fluctuation on the estimation of time-averaged temperature profiles are small. But in the case of strong turbulent fluctuation, the influences of turbulent fluctuation on the estimation of time-averaged temperature profiles are significant.     

Statistics of the energy dissipation rate and local enstrophy in turbulent channel flow

Using high-resolution direct numerical simulations, the height and Reynolds number dependence of high-order statistics of the energy dissipation rate and local enstrophy are examined in incompressible, fully developed turbulent channel flow. The statistics are studied over a range of wall distances, spanning the viscous sublayer to the channel flow centerline, for friction Reynolds numbers Re_τ=180 and Re_τ=381. The high resolution of the simulations allows dissipation and enstrophy moments up to fourth order to be calculated. These moments show a dependence on wall distance, and Reynolds number effects are observed at the edge of the logarithmic layer. Conditional analyses based on locations of intense rotation are also carried out in order to determine the contribution of vortical structures to the dissipation and enstrophy moments. Our analysis shows that, for the simulation at the larger Reynolds number, small-scale fluctuations of both dissipation and enstrophy show relatively small variations for z⁺?100.     

Use of Lagrangian statistics for the analysis of the scale separation hypothesis in turbulent channel flow

Turbulence models often involve Reynolds averaging, with a closure providing the Reynolds stress tensor as function of mean velocity gradients, through a turbulence constitutive equation. The main limitation of this linear closure is that it rests on an analogy with kinetic theory. For this analogy to be valid there has to be a scale separation between the mean velocity variations and the turbulent Lagrangian free path whose mean value is the turbulent mixing length. The aim of this work is to better understand this hypothesis from a microscopic point of view. Therefore, fluid elements are tracked in a turbulent channel flow. The flow is resolved by direct numerical simulation (DNS). Statistics on particle trajectories ending on a certain distance y₀ from the wall are computed, leading to estimations of the turbulent mixing length scale and the Knudsen number. Comparing the computed values to the Knudsen number in the case of scale separation, we may know in which region of the flow and to what extent the turbulence constitutive equation is not verified. Finally, a new non-local formulation for predicting the Reynolds stress is proposed.     

Turbulent vortex rings in weakly turbulent and in turbulent ambient flow

Turbulent vortex rings were investigated in weakly turbulent flow and in three different grid generated turbulent flows to clarify the reciprocal action of the vortex ring with defined external turbulence. Assuming self-similarity and turbulent viscosity as proportional to V₀D₀ the equations for the ring diameter D(t) and the velocity of propagation V(t) were derived. The time difference Δt between the virtual origins of 1/V(t) respectively D²(t) led to an invariant term. The equation of momentum is fulfilled. – Position and diameter of the vortex rings were determined till their decay by means of an optical system, which did not disturb the vortex rings. The experimental results in weakly turbulent ambient flow obtained by the author and by others confirm the theory very well. The ambient turbulence was nearly constant in the measuring region; its effect could be described by simply adding its viscosity to the vortex ring’s internal turbulent viscosity. The results could be represented in unified non-dimensional diagrams. Moreover, an explanation was found as to why the mean internal turbulent viscosity is constant.     

Study of turbulent swirling flow in a rotating separation element of variable cross section

In the present study, the distribution of circumferential velocity components of carrier flow in separation elements of air-centrifugal classifiers of powder materials has been experimentally examined. The study was carried out for variously contoured separation channels, and also for various conditions of a carrying agent (air) input in a separation zone. Optimal conditions for particle separation throughout the whole volume of the separation element can be organized by making the channel contour diverging towards the center of rotation. The experimental data gained in this study supplement the mathematical model for the aerodynamics of turbulent carrier flow in the shaped rotating separation elements of air-centrifugal classifiers and make an analysis of the separation-zone flow possible.     

Opposed flow flame spread over an array of thin solid fuel sheets in a microgravity environment

In this work a numerical study has been carried out to gain physical insight into the phenomena of opposed flow flame spread over an array of thin solid fuel sheets in a microgravity environment. The two-dimensional (2D) simulations show that the flame spread rates for the multiple-fuel configuration are higher than those for the flame spreading over a single fuel sheet. This is due to reduced radiation losses from the flame and increased heat feedback to the solid fuel. The flame spread rate exhibits a non-monotonic variation with decrease in the interspace distance between the fuel sheets. Higher radiation heat feedback primarily as gas/flame radiation was found to be responsible for the increase in the flame spread rate with the reduction of the interspace distance. It was noted that as the interspace distance between the fuel sheets was reduced below a certain value, no steady solution could be obtained. However, at very small interspace distances, steady state spread rates were obtained. Here, due to oxygen starvation the flame spread rate decreased and eventually at some interspace distance the flame extinguished. With fuel emittance (equal to absorptance) reduced to ‘0’ the flame spread rate was nearly independent of the interspace distance, except at very small distances where the flame spread rate dropped due to oxygen starvation. A flame extinction plot with the extinction oxygen level was constructed for the multiple-fuel configuration at various interspace distances. The default fuel with an emittance of 0.92 was found to be more flammable in the multiple-fuel configuration than in a single fuel sheet configuration. For a fuel emittance equal to zero, the extinction oxygen limit decreases for both the single and the multiple fuel sheet configurations. However, the two flammability curves cross over at a certain fuel separation distance. The multiple-fuel configurations become less flammable compared to the single fuel sheet configuration below a certain separation distance.     

A comparison of different entransy flow definitions and entropy generation in thermal radiation optimization

In thermal radiation, taking heat flow as an extensive quantity and defining the potential as temperature T or the black body emissive power U will lead to two different definitions of radiation entransy flow and the corresponding principles for thermal radiation optimization. The two definitions of radiation entransy flow and the corresponding optimization prin ciples are compared in this paper. When the total heat flow is given, the optimization objectives of the extremum entransy dissipation principles （EEDPs） developed based on potentials T and U correspond to the minimum equivalent temperature difference and the minimum equivalent blackbody emissive power difference respectively. The physical meaning of the definition based on potential U is clearer than that based on potential T, but the latter one can be used for the coupled heat transfer optimization problem while the former one cannot. The extremum entropy generation principle （EEGP） for thermal radiation is also derived, which includes the minimum entropy generation principle for thermal radiation. When the radiation heat flow is prescribed, the EEGP reveals that the minimum entropy generation leads to the minimum equivalent thermodynamic potential difference, which is not the expected objective in heat transfer. Therefore, the minimum entropy generation is not always appropriate for thermal radiation optimization. Finally, three thermal radiation optimization examples are discussed, and the results show that the difference in optimization objective between the EEDPs and the EEGP leads to the difference between the optimization results. The EEDP based on potential T is more useful in practical application since its optimization objective is usually consistent with the expected one.     

Strain rates,flow patterns and flame surface densities in hydrodynamically unstable,weakly turbulent premixed flames

Recent numerical and experimental studies have unveiled a potentially marked difference between the laminar as well as turbulent propagation of premixed flames exhibiting Darrieus–Landau (DL) (or hydrodynamic) instabilities from flames for which instabilities are inhibited. In this study we utilize two-dimensional numerical simulations of slot burner flames as well as experimental Propane–Air Bunsen flames to analyse differences in turbulent propagation, strain rate and induced flow patterns of hydrodynamically stable and unstable flames. We also investigate the effects of hydrodynamic instability on quantities which are directly related to reaction rate closure models, such as flame surface density and stretch factor. A clear enhancement of turbulent flame speed can be observed for unstable flames, generally mitigated at higher turbulence intensity, which is attributed to a flame area increase induced by the characteristic cusp-like DL-induced corrugation, absent in stable flames, which occurs concurrently and in synergy with turbulent wrinkling. Unstable flames also exhibit, both numerically and experimentally, a different correlation between strain rate and flame curvature and are observed to give rise to a channeling of the induced flow in the fresh mixture. Conditionally averaged flame surface density is also observed to attain smaller values in unstable flames, as a result of the thicker turbulent flame brush, indicating that closure models should incorporate instability-related parameters in addition to turbulence-related parameters.     

Simultaneous PIV/PTV/OH PLIF imaging: Conditional flow field statistics in partially premixed turbulent opposed jet flames

A combination of particle imaging velocimetry (PIV), particle tracking velocimetry (PTV) and planar laser-induced fluorescence (PLIF) was employed to measure conditional flow field statistics in partially premixed turbulent opposed jet flames. These flames were observed to be very sensitive to excessive seeding of particles. Since flames close to extinction were studied, very low seeding densities were required to prevent impact on the extinction behavior of the flame, and conventional PIV algorithms would have resulted in poor spatial resolution. An improved PIV algorithm was developed, in connection with a PTV procedure used in high-temperature regions of low seed density, and revealed high in-plane resolution up to 300 μm. The PIV/PTV algorithm slightly under-resolved the Kolmogorov scales for the present cases, whereas Batchelor scales were fully resolved in-plane by the simultaneous OH PLIF. In the data processing, transient OH contours obtained from single-shots were used to define flame-fixed coordinates. Conditional velocities, out-of-plane vorticity, 2D dilatation, and both axial and radial strain were processed from the data. The conditional statistics show that vorticity is preferably generated close to the reaction zone, particularly at off-centerline positions. Hence, flow-chemistry interactions could be identified directly in the region of the reaction zone. This finding was also supported by qualitative high speed Mie scattering/chemiluminescence imaging that permitted temporally resolved visualization of the formation of eddies just upstream of the luminous flame areas.     

Momentum transport and torque scaling in Taylor-Couette flow from an analogy with turbulent convection

We generalize an analogy between rotating and stratified shear flows. This analogy is summarized in Table 1. We use this analogy in the unstable case (centrifugally unstable flow vs. convection) to compute the torque in Taylor-Couette configuration, as a function of the Reynolds number. At low Reynolds numbers, when most of the dissipation comes from the mean flow, we predict that the non-dimensional torque G = T/ν² L, where L is the cylinder length, scales with Reynolds number R and gap width η, G = 1.46η^3/2(1 - η)^-7/4 R ^3/2. At larger Reynolds number, velocity fluctuations become non-negligible in the dissipation. In these regimes, there is no exact power law dependence the torque versus Reynolds. Instead, we obtain logarithmic corrections to the classical ultra-hard (exponent 2) regimes: G = 0.50 . These predictions are found to be in excellent agreement with avail-able experimental data. Predictions for scaling of velocity fluctuations are also provided. Received 7 June 2001 and Received in final form 7 December 2001     

Prediction of wall-pressure fluctuation in turbulent flows with an immersed boundary method

The objective of this paper is to assess the accuracy and efficiency of the immersed boundary (IB) method to predict the wall pressure fluctuations in turbulent flows, where the flow dynamics in the near-wall region is fundamental to correctly predict the overall flow. The present approach achieves sufficient accuracy at the immersed boundary and overcomes deficiencies in previous IB methods by introducing additional constraints – a compatibility for the interpolated velocity boundary condition related to mass conservation and the formal decoupling of the pressure on this surfaces. The immersed boundary-approximated domain method (IB-ADM) developed in the present study satisfies these conditions with an inexpensive computational overhead. The IB-ADM correctly predicts the near-wall velocity, pressure and scalar fields in several example problems, including flows around a very thin solid object for which incorrect results were obtained with previous IB methods. In order to have sufficient near-wall mesh resolution for LES and DNS computations, the present approach uses local mesh refinement. The present method has been also successfully applied to computation of the wall-pressure space–time correlation in DNS of turbulent channel flow on grids not aligned with the boundaries. When applied to a turbulent flow around an airfoil, the computed flow statistics – the mean/RMS flow field and power spectra of the wall pressure – are in good agreement with experiment.     

On the role of radiation and dimensionality in predicting flow opposed flame spread over thin fuels

In this work a flame-spread model is formulated in three dimensions to simulate opposed flow flame spread over thin solid fuels. The flame-spread model is coupled to a three-dimensional gas radiation model. The experiments [1] on downward spread and zero gravity quiescent spread over finite width thin fuel are simulated by flame-spread models in both two and three dimensions to assess the role of radiation and effect of dimensionality on the prediction of the flame-spread phenomena. It is observed that while radiation plays only a minor role in normal gravity downward spread, in zero gravity quiescent spread surface radiation loss holds the key to correct prediction of low oxygen flame spread rate and quenching limit. The present three-dimensional simulations show that even in zero gravity gas radiation affects flame spread rate only moderately (as much as 20% at 100% oxygen) as the heat feedback effect exceeds the radiation loss effect only moderately. However, the two-dimensional model with the gas radiation model badly over-predicts the zero gravity flame spread rate due to under estimation of gas radiation loss to the ambient surrounding. The two-dimensional model was also found to be inadequate for predicting the zero gravity flame attributes, like the flame length and the flame width, correctly. The need for a three-dimensional model was found to be indispensable for consistently describing the zero gravity flame-spread experiments [1] (including flame spread rate and flame size) especially at high oxygen levels (>30%). On the other hand it was observed that for the normal gravity downward flame spread for oxygen levels up to 60%, the two-dimensional model was sufficient to predict flame spread rate and flame size reasonably well. Gas radiation is seen to increase the three-dimensional effect especially at elevated oxygen levels (>30% for zero gravity and >60% for normal gravity flames).