Challenges for turbulent combustion

Turbulent combustion will remain central to the next generation of combustion devices that are likely to employ blends of renewable and fossil fuels, transitioning eventually to electrofuels (also referred to as e-fuels, powerfuels, power-to-x, or synthetics). This paper starts by projecting that the decarbonization process is likely to be very slow as guided by history and by the sheer extent of the current network for fossil fuels, and the cost of its replacement. This transition to renewables will be moderated by the advent of cleaner engines that operate on increasingly cleaner fuel blends. A brief outline of recent developments in combustion modes, such as gasoline compression ignition for reciprocating engines and sequential combustion for gas turbines, is presented. The next two sections of the paper identify two essential areas of development for advancing knowledge of turbulent combustion, namely multi-mode or mixed-mode combustion and soot formation. Multi-mode combustion is common in practical devices and spans the entire range of processes from transient ignition to stable combustion and the formation of pollutants. A range of burners developed to study highly turbulent premixed flames and mixed-mode flames, is presented along with samples of data and an outline of outstanding research issues. Soot formation relevant to electrofuels, such as blends of diesel-oxymethylene ethers, hydrogen-methane or ethylene-ammonia, is also discussed. Mechanisms of soot formation, while significantly improved, remain lacking particularly for heavy fuels and their blends. Other important areas of research, such as spray atomization, turbulent dense spray flames, turbulent fires, and the effects of high pressure, are briefly mentioned. The paper concludes by highlighting the continued need for research in these areas of turbulent combustion to bring predictive capabilities to a level of comprehensive fidelity that enables them to become standard reliable tools for the design and monitoring of future combustors.     

Dynamics of triple-flames in ignition of turbulent dual fuel mixture: A direct numerical simulation study

Pilot-ignited dual fuel combustion involves a complex transition between the pilot fuel autoignition and the premixed-like phase of combustion, which is challenging for experimental measurement and numerical modelling, and not sufficiently explored. To further understand the fundamentals of the dual fuel ignition processes, the transient ignition and subsequent flame development in a turbulent dimethyl ether (DME)/methane-air mixing layer under diesel engine-relevant conditions are studied by direct numerical simulations (DNS). Results indicate that combustion is initiated by a two-stage autoignition that involves both low-temperature and high-temperature chemistry. The first stage autoignition is initiated at the stoichiometric mixture, and then the ignition front propagates against the mixture fraction gradient into rich mixtures and eventually forms a diffusively-supported cool flame. The second stage ignition kernels are spatially distributed around the most reactive mixture fraction with a low scalar dissipation rate. Multiple triple flames are established and propagate along the stoichiometric mixture, which is proven to play an essential role in the flame developing process. The edge flames gradually get close to each other with their branches eventually connected. It is the leading lean premixed branch that initiates the steady propagating methane-air flame. The time required for the initiation of steady flame is substantially shorter than the autoignition delay time of the methane-air mixture under the same thermochemical condition. Temporal evolution of the displacement speed at the flame front is also investigated to clarify the propagation characteristics of the combustion waves. Cool flame and propagation of triple flames are also identified in this study, which are novel features of the pilot-ignited dual fuel combustion.     

Laser-induced plasma in methane and dimethyl ether for flame ignition and combustion diagnostics

In this paper we report the investigation of the laser-induced breakdown and ignition behaviour of methane/air and dimethyl ether (DME)/air mixtures. Moreover, the optical emission from the induced plasma is utilized for determining the mixture composition quantitatively by means of laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS). To the best of the authors’ knowledge, LIBS and laser ignition of DME have not been reported in literature before. The technique under investigation is finally employed for combustion diagnostics in laminar as well as turbulent flames. In the laminar premixed and non-premixed flames the LIBS spectra allow spatially resolved measurements of the equivalence ratio and enable studying the mixing of gases provided through the burner with the surrounding room air. In addition, the breakdown threshold of the applied laser pulse energy yields an estimate for the local temperature. In the turbulent cases single-shot LIBS spectra are recorded at fixed position allowing the derivation of local statistical fluctuations of the equivalence ratio in partially premixed jet flames. The results show that laser-induced breakdowns have a strong potential for flame diagnostics and, under suitable conditions, for the ignition of combustible mixtures.     

A novel method to automate FGM progress variable with application to igniting combustion systems

This paper introduces a new method to formulate reaction progress variables for the application of FGM in combustion systems. The method involves a multiobjective optimisation to find a reaction progress variable that accurately reproduces complex reactive phenomenon of interest. In our current research, the method is applied to igniting non-premixed flames. The optimised progress variable combinations are evaluated for their accuracy in reproducing detailed chemistry results for the ignition of hydrocarbon fuels. Comparisons are made against conventional progress variable formulations used in the literature. The current approach takes into consideration the table resolution and error reduction for the application of FGM in combustion problems. Methods that rely on maximising the smoothness of the manifold or ensuring monotonic increase in progress variables alone are shown to be insufficient to capture ignition. The possibility of optimising the progress variable with emphasis on accurately resolving a particular zone or phase of combustion, such as ignition, while maintaining minimum data loss is demonstrated. Through its application in a number of igniting counterflow flames, the effectiveness of the current method is verified. Progress variables optimised using specific flame databases are shown to accurately reproduce the ignition delays even with moderate variations in boundary conditions of the respective flames.     

Studies of autoignition-assisted nonpremixed cool flames

Autoignition-assisted nonpremixed cool flames of diethyl ether (DEE) are investigated in both laminar counterflow and turbulent jet flame configurations. First, the ignition and extinction limits of laminar nonpremixed cool flames of diluted DEE are measured and simulated using detailed kinetic models. The laminar flame measurements are used to validate the kinetic models and guide the turbulent flame measurements. The results show that, below a critical mixture condition, for elevated temperature and dilute mixtures, the cool flame extinction limit and the low-temperature ignition limit merge, leading to autoignition-assisted cool flame stabilization without hysteresis. Based on the findings from the laminar flame experiments, autoignition-assisted turbulent lifted cool flames are established using a Co-flow Axisymmetric Reactor-Assisted Turbulent (CARAT) burner. The lift-off heights of the turbulent cool flames are quantified using formaldehyde planar laser-induced fluorescence. Based on an analogy with autoignition-assisted lifted hot flames, a correlation is proposed such that the autoignition-assisted cool flame lift-off height scales with the product of the flow velocity and the square of the first-stage ignition delay time. Using this scaling, we demonstrate that the kinetic mechanism that most accurately predicts the laminar flame ignition and extinction limits also best predicts the turbulent cool flame lift-off height.     

Numerical investigation of pulverized coal particle group combustion using tabulated chemistry

The ignition and combustion of coal particle groups are investigated numerically in a laminar flow reactor. The Flamelet Generated Manifold method is extended to account for the complex mixture of gases being released during devolatilization, which is calculated with a competing two-step model. A second mixture fraction is introduced to include the mixing with the second methane fuel stream. The interactions of the gas phase with particles are modeled within a fully coupled Euler-Lagrange framework. To investigate the influence of particle groups on ignition and combustion, successively increasing densities of particle streams have been analyzed. The ignition delay time is increased significantly by higher particle densities. This delay is validated successfully with the available measurements. Moreover, the shape of the volatile flame was found to be strongly influenced by the particle number density inside the flame. A transition from spherical flames around single particles to a conical flame around the particle cloud could be found in numerical results as well as in experiments. As the primary mechanism for the substantial ignition delay and the formation of the flame, the increased heat transfer from the gas-phase to the particle group, resulting in lower gas-phase temperatures, was identified.     

Minimum ignition energy and propagation dynamics of laminar premixed cool flames

Laminar premixed cool flames, induced by the coupling of low-temperature chemistry and convective-diffusive transport process, have recently attracted extensive interest in combustion and engine research. In this work, numerical simulations have been conducted using a recently developed open-source reacting flow platform reactingFOAM-SCT, to investigate the minimum ignition energy (MIE) and propagation dynamics of premixed cool flames in a 1D spherical coordinate. Results have shown that when ignition energy is below the MIE of regular hot flames, a class of cool flames could be initiated, which allow much wider flammability limits, both lean and rich, compared to hot flames. Furthermore, the overall cool flame propagation dynamics exhibit intrinsic similarity to those of hot flames, in that, they begin with an ignition kernel propagation regime, followed by two transition regimes, and eventually reach a normal flame propagation regime. However, a spherical expanding cool flame responds completely differently to stretch. Specifically, a regular outwardly propagating hot spherical flame accelerates with increasing stretch rate when the mixture Le < 1 and decelerates when Le > 1. However, it is found that a cool flame always tends to decelerate with increasing stretch rate regardless of mixture composition, exhibiting unique flame aerodynamic characteristic. This research discovers novel features of premixed cool flame initiation and propagation dynamics and sheds light on flame transition, spark-ignition system design, and advanced engine combustion control.     

一种低湍流扬尘方法的实验研究

对一种新型扬尘方法在垂直管道中形成的扬尘湍流特性进行了测量,在此基础上,观察和测量了玉米粉尘火焰向上传播的过程,讨论了湍流对火焰特性的影响。新方法产生的扬尘湍流强度相当低,随时间衰减缓慢,扬尘湍流的积分尺度随着时间增大,约为2 cm到3 cm。实验中观察到两种粉尘火焰:湍流火焰和层流火焰,火焰形态转变对应的点火延迟时间约等于1．1 s,即粉尘云湍流运动强度为10 cm／s,湍流火焰传播速度明显大于层流火焰。     

Laser diagnostics and their interplay with computations to understand turbulent combustion

Laser diagnostics for fundamental investigation of turbulent combustion are discussed in the context of collaborative research that has been conducted over the past decade to contribute toward the development and experimental validation of predictive science-based models for turbulent flames. The emphasis is on simultaneous application of multiple laser techniques in flames having relatively simple fuels and flow geometries, as well as separate application of complementary diagnostics in the same flames. Data needs and design considerations for turbulent combustion model-validation experiments are outlined. Examples are given of ways in which the interplay of experiments and computations on “standard” turbulent flames has led to better understanding of these flames and also a better understanding of the capabilities of laser diagnostics and models to accurately capture the effects of turbulence-chemistry interactions. Issues of spatial resolution, differential diffusion, and LES validation are discussed, and perspectives on current research challenges are offered.     

Large eddy simulation of the low temperature ignition and combustion processes on spray flame with the linear eddy model

Large eddy simulation coupled with the linear eddy model (LEM) is employed for the simulation of n-heptane spray flames to investigate the low temperature ignition and combustion process in a constant-volume combustion vessel under diesel-engine relevant conditions. Parametric studies are performed to give a comprehensive understanding of the ignition processes. The non-reacting case is firstly carried out to validate the present model by comparing the predicted results with the experimental data from the Engine Combustion Network (ECN). Good agreements are observed in terms of liquid and vapour penetration length, as well as the mixture fraction distributions at different times and different axial locations. For the reacting cases, the flame index was introduced to distinguish between the premixed and non-premixed combustion. A reaction region (RR) parameter is used to investigate the ignition and combustion characteristics, and to distinguish the different combustion stages. Results show that the two-stage combustion process can be identified in spray flames, and different ignition positions in the mixture fraction versus RR space are well described at low and high initial ambient temperatures. At an initial condition of 850 K, the first-stage ignition is initiated at the fuel-lean region, followed by the reactions in fuel-rich regions. Then high-temperature reaction occurs mainly at the places with mixture concentration around stoichiometric mixture fraction. While at an initial temperature of 1000 K, the first-stage ignition occurs at the fuel-rich region first, then it moves towards fuel-richer region. Afterwards, the high-temperature reactions move back to the stoichiometric mixture fraction region. For all of the initial temperatures considered, high-temperature ignition kernels are initiated at the regions richer than stoichiometric mixture fraction. By increasing the initial ambient temperature, the high-temperature ignition kernels move towards richer mixture regions. And after the spray flames gets quasi-steady, most heat is released at the stoichiometric mixture fraction regions. In addition, combustion mode analysis based on key intermediate species illustrates three-mode combustion processes in diesel spray flames.     

Development and validation of an n-dodecane skeletal mechanism for spray combustion applications

n-Dodecane is a promising surrogate fuel for diesel engine study because its physicochemical properties are similar to those of the practical diesel fuels. In the present study, a skeletal mechanism for n-dodecane with 105 species and 420 reactions was developed for spray combustion simulations. The reduction starts from the most recent detailed mechanism for n-alkanes consisting of 2755 species and 11,173 reactions developed by the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. An algorithm combining direct relation graph with expert knowledge (DRGX) and sensitivity analysis was employed for the present skeletal reduction. The skeletal mechanism was first extensively validated in 0-D and 1-D combustion systems, including auto-ignition, jet stirred reactor (JSR), laminar premixed flame and counter flow diffusion flame. Then it was coupled with well-established spray models and further validated in 3-D turbulent spray combustion simulations under engine-like conditions. These simulations were compared with the recent experiments with n-dodecane as a surrogate for diesel fuels. It can be seen that combustion characteristics such as ignition delay and flame lift-off length were well captured by the skeletal mechanism, particularly under conditions with high ambient temperatures. Simulations also captured the transient flame development phenomenon fairly well. The results further show that ignition delay may not be the only factor controlling the stabilisation of the present flames since a good match in ignition delay does not necessarily result in improved flame lift-off length prediction.     

Propagation of Darrieus–Landau unstable laminar and turbulent expanding flames

The propagation of laminar and turbulent expanding flames subjected to Darrieus–Landau (DL), hydrodynamic instability was experimentally studied by employing stoichiometric H₂/O₂/N₂ flames under quiescent and turbulent conditions performed in a newly developed medium-scale, fan-stirred combustion chamber. In quiescent environment, DL unstable laminar flame exhibits three-stage propagation, i.e. smooth expansion, transition acceleration, and self-similar acceleration. The self-similar acceleration is characterized by a power-law growth of acceleration exponent, α, with normalized Peclet number, which is different from the usually suggested self-similar propagation with a constant α. The imposed turbulence advances the onset of both transition acceleration and self-similar acceleration stages and promotes the strength of flame acceleration as additional wrinkles are invoked by turbulence eddies. A DL–turbulent interaction regime is confirmed to be the classical corrugated flamelets regime. Furthermore, the DL instability significantly facilitates the propagation of expanding flames in medium and even intense turbulence. The development of DL cells is not suppressed by turbulence eddies, and it needs to be considered in turbulent combustion.     

Simulation of spray development and turbulent combustion processes in low and high speed diesel engines by the CMC-ISR model

Simulation is performed to analyse the characteristics of turbulent spray combustion in conventional low and high speed diesel engine conditions. Turbulence–chemistry interaction is resolved by the Conditional Moment Closure (CMC) model in the spatially integrated form of an Incompletely Stirred Reactor (ISR). After validation against measured pressure traces, characteristic length and time scales and dimensionless numbers are estimated at the locations of sequentially injected fuel groups. Conditional flame structures are calculated for sequentially evaporated fuel groups to consider different available periods for ignition chemistry. Injection overlaps the combustion period in the high rpm engine, while most combustion occurs after injection and evaporation are complete in the low rpm engine. Ignition occurs in rich premixture with the initial peak temperature at the equivalence ratio around 2–4 as observed in Dec [2]. It corresponds to the most reactive mixture fraction of the minimum ignition delay for the given mixture states. Combustion proceeds to lean and rich sides in the mixture fraction space as a diffusion process by turbulence. The mean scalar dissipation rates (SDRs) are lower than the extinction limit to show stability of diffusion flames throughout the combustion period.     

Understanding cool flames and warm flames

Low-temperature flames such as cool flames, warm flames, double flames, and auto-ignition assisted flames play a critical role in the performance of advanced engines and fuel design. In this paper, an overview of the recent progresses in understanding low-temperature flames and dynamics as well as their impacts on combustion, advanced engines, and fuel development will be presented. Specifically, at first, a brief review of the history of cool flames is made. Then, the recent experimental studies and computational modeling of the flame structures, dynamics, and burning limits of non-premixed and premixed cool flames, warm flames, and double flames are presented. The flammability limit diagram and the temperature-dependent chain-branching reaction pathways, respectively, for hot, warm, and cool flames at elevated temperature and pressure will be discussed and analyzed. After that, the effect of low temperature auto-ignition of auto-igniting mixtures at high ignition Damköhler numbers at engine conditions on the propagation of cool flames, warm flames, and double flames as well as turbulent flames will be discussed. Finally, a new platform using low temperature flames for the development and validation of chemical kinetic models of alternative fuels will be presented. Discussions of future research of the dynamics and control of low temperature flames under engine conditions will be made.     

Recent developments in DNS of turbulent combustion

The simulation of turbulent flames fully resolving the smallest flow scales and the thinnest reaction zones goes along with specific requirements, which are discussed from dimensionless numbers useful to introduce the generic context in which direct numerical simulation (DNS) of turbulent flames is performed. Starting from this basis, the evolution of the DNS landscape over the past five years is reviewed. It is found that the flow geometries, the focus of the studies and the overall motivations for performing DNS have broadened, making DNS a standard tool in numerical turbulent combustion. Along these lines, the emerging DNS of laboratory burners for turbulent flame modeling development is discussed and illustrated from DNS imbedded in Large Eddy Simulation (LES) and flow resolved simulation of bluff-body flames. The literature shows that DNS generated databases constitute a fantastic playground for developing and testing a large spectrum of promising machine learning methods for the control and the optimisation of combustion systems, including novel numerical approaches based on the training of neural networks and which can be evaluated in DNS free from sub-model artefacts. The so-called quasi-DNS is also progressively entering the optimisation loop of combustion systems, with the application of techniques to downsize real combustion devices in order to perform fully resolved simulations of their complex geometries. An example of such study leading to the improvement of an incinerator efficiency is reported. Finally, numbers are given relative to the carbon footprint of the generation of DNS databases, motivating the crucial need for community building around database sharing.     

Using self-similar properties of turbulent premixed flames to downsize chemical tables in high-performance numerical simulations

Detailed chemical mechanisms have to be incorporated in turbulent combustion modelling to predict flame propagation, ignition, extinction or pollutant formation. Unfortunately, hundreds of species and thousands of elementary reactions are involved in hydrocarbon chemical schemes and cannot be handled in practical simulations, because of the related computational costs and the need to model the complexity of their interaction with turbulent motions. Detailed chemistry may be handled using look-up tables, where chemical parameters such as reaction rates and/or species mass fractions are determined from a reduced set of coordinates, progress variables or mixture fractions, as proposed in ILDM, FPI or FGM methods. Nevertheless, these tables may require large computer memory spaces and non-negligible access times. This issue becomes of crucial importance when running on massively parallel computers: to implement these databases in shared memories would induce a large number of data exchanges, reducing the overall code performance; on the other hand duplicating databases in every local processor memory may become impossible either for large databases or small local memories. This work proposes to take advantage of the self-similar behaviour of turbulent premixed flames to reduce the size of these chemical databases, specifically when running on massively parallel machines, under the FPI (Flame Prolongation of ILDM) framework. Several approaches to reduce the database are investigated and discussed both in terms of memory requirements and access times. A very good compromise is obtained for methane–air turbulent premixed flames, where the size of the database is decreased by a factor of 1000, while the access time is reduced by about 60%.     

Investigation on ignition behaviors of pulverized coal particles in a tubular swirl burner

This paper intensively investigated the ignition of turbulent coal flames in a novel fully-mixed tubular swirl burner. The Nikon D300s digital camera was used to capture the statistical ignition behavior of dispersed coal particle streams in different ambiences. Meanwhile, the combustion dynamics of individual coal particles were also recorded by means of high-speed photography. Two low-rank coal samples, Hulunbel lignite and Zhundong coal, were tested in this study. The ignition delay times of coal particles in the swirl burner were compared with those in a flat-flame burner. In contrast to previous work on a laminar flat-flame burner, the current experimental results show that the turbulent ambience significantly enhances the ignition of all coal samples, which is exceptionally pronounced under high temperature and low oxygen conditions. In addition, the sensitivity analysis suggests that both the enhanced heat and mass transfer contribute to the early ignition in turbulence. The effect of elevated mass transfer coefficient turns prominent in low oxygen fraction ambience, wherein the volatile barrier effect is suppressed by the enhanced mixing process. The combined effect of turbulence favors the shifting of ignition modes to the heterogeneous-dominant region. Last but not least, the ceased volatile flame that visualized in turbulent low oxygen ambience further confirms the important role of heterogeneous ignition.     

Combustion theory and modeling

In honor of the fiftieth anniversary of the Combustion Institute, we are asked to assess accomplishments of theory in combustion over the past fifty years and prospects for the future. The title of our article is chosen to emphasize that development of theory necessarily goes hand-in-hand with specification of a model. Good conceptual models underlie successful mathematical theories. Models and theories are discussed here for deflagrations, detonations, diffusion flames, ignition, propellant combustion, and turbulent combustion. In many of these areas, the genesis of mathematical theories occurred during the past fifty years, and in all of them significant advances are anticipated in the future. Increasing interaction between theory and computation will aid this progress. We hope that, although certainly not complete in topical coverage or reference citation, the presentation may suggest useful directions for future research in combustion theory.     

Conditional moment closure and transient flamelet modelling for detailed structure and NO x formation characteristics of turbulent nonpremixed jet and recirculating flames

This study has been mainly motivated to assess computationally and theoretically the conditional moment closure (CMC) model and the transient flamelet model for the simulation of turbulent nonpremixed flames. These two turbulent combustion models are implemented into the unstructured grid finite volume method that efficiently handles physically and geometrically complex turbulent reacting flows. Moreover, the parallel algorithm has been implemented to improve computational efficiency as well as to reduce the memory load of the CMC procedure. Example cases include two turbulent CO/H₂/N₂ jet flames having different flow timescales and the turbulent nonpremixed H₂/CO flame stabilized on an axisymmetric bluff-body burner. The Lagrangian flamelet model and the simplified CMC formulation are applied to the strongly parabolic jet flame calculation. On the other hand, the Eulerian particle flamelet model and full conservative CMC formulation are employed for the bluff-body flame with flow recirculation. Based on the numerical results, a detailed discussion is given for the comparative performances of the two combustion models in terms of the flame structure and NO _x formation characteristics.