On the experimental validation of combustion simulations in turbulent non-premixed jets

A Reynolds averaged Navier–Stokes (RANS) based combustion model, which incorporated the conditional source-term estimation (CSE) method for the closure of the chemical source term and the trajectory generated low-dimensional manifold (TGLDM) method for the reduction of detailed chemistry, was applied to predict the OH radical distribution in a combusting non-premixed methane jet. The results of the numerical prediction were compared with the results of a complementary experimental study in which the OH radical fields of combusting non-premixed methane jets were visualized using planar laser induced fluorescence (PLIF). It is well known within the modelling community that RANS based models are unable to capture the stochastic nature of turbulent combustion and autoignition, and are therefore unable to predict individual realizations of the flame. In this study, the agreement between the predicted OH field and a well-converged ensemble average of the experimental results was also shown to be poor. The lack of agreement between the numerical results and the ensemble averaged experimental results expose the potential significance of the known weakness in the RANS method. A statistical analysis of the experimental results was also performed. The results of the analysis showed that a minimum of 100 individual realizations was required to provide a well-converged average OH field for the combusting non-premixed jet under investigation. The significance of this result with respect to the validation of large-eddy simulations (LES) of combusting jets is discussed.