An Approach to Model Partially Premixed Turbulent Combustion withProbability Density Function (PDF) Methods

In turbulent combustion one distinguishes between premixed, non-premixed and partially premixed combustion. While laminar flamelet models proved to be extremely valuable for a wide range of non-premixed flame simulations, similar approaches are more problematic in the partially premixed regime. Here the laminar flamelet concept for non-premixed turbulent combustion simulations is generalized for the partially premixed regime. Similar as in the unsteady flamelet approach, the joint statistics of a progress variable, mixture fraction and scalar dissipation rate is used to obtain the joint statistics of the compositions from pre-computed flame tables. The required distribution is computed with a joint PDF method and the main differences between the new approach and previous ones, are the pre-computed tables and the way the evolution of the progress variable is calculated. Instead of evolving 1D flamelets, steady 2D solutions of burning flamelets propagating into unburned mixtures with varying mixture fraction are considered. The location of a fluid particle in this 2D laminar flame is defined by its mixture fraction and a burning time, which are modeled for each computational particle used in the PDF method. Numerical experiments of a turbulent lifted diffusion flame and a premixed Bunsen flame demonstrate that this approach can be employed for a wide range of applications. (© 2006 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)