Christophe Duwig

Large-eddy simulation of highly underexpanded transient gas jets

Large-eddy simulations (LES) based on scale-selective implicit filtering are carried out in order to study the effect of nozzle pressure ratios on the characteristics of highly underexpanded jets. Pressure ratios ranging from 4.5 to 8.5 with Reynolds numbers of the order 75?000–140?000 are considered. The studied configuration agrees well with the classical picture of the structure of highly underexpanded jets. Similarities and differences between simulation and experiments are discussed by comparing the concentration field structures from LES and planar laser induced fluorescence data. The transient stages, leading eventually to the highly underexpanded state, are visualized and investigated in terms of a phase diagram revealing the shock speeds and duration of the transient stages. For the studied nozzle pressure ratio range, the Mach disk dimensions are found to be in good agreement with literature data and experimental observations. It is observed how the nozzle pressure ratio influences the Mach disk width, and thereby the slip line separation, which leads to co-annular jets with inner and outer shear layers at higher pressure ratios. The improved mixing with increasing pressure ratio is demonstrated by the probability density functions of the concentration. The coherent structures downstream of the Mach disk are identified using proper orthogonal decomposition (POD). The structures indicate a helical mode originating from the shear layers of the jet. Despite the relatively low energy content of the dominant POD modes, the frequencies of the POD time coefficients explain the dominant frequencies in the pressure fluctuation spectra.

Experimental and numerical study of flameless combustion in a model gas turbine combustor

Flameless combustion is an attractive solution to address existing problems of emissions and stability when operating gas turbine combustors. Theoretical, numerical and experimental approaches were used to study the flameless gas turbine combustor. The emissions and combustion stability were measured and the limits of the flameless regime are discussed. Using experimental techniques and Large Eddy Simulation (LES), detailed knowledge of the flow field and the oxidation dynamics was obtained. In particular the relation between the turbulent coherent structures dynamics and the flameless oxidation was highlighted. A model for flameless combustion simulations including detailed chemistry was derived. The theoretical analysis of the flameless combustion provides 2 non-dimensional numbers that define the range of the flameless mode. It was determined that the mixture that is ignited and burnt is composed of ∼ 50% of fresh gases and ∼ 50% vitiated gases.

Large Eddy Simulations of a piloted lean premix jet flame using finite-rate chemistry

A Large Eddy Simulation (LES) model capable of accurately representing finite-rate chemistry effects in turbulent premixed combustion is presented. The LES computations use finite-rate chemistry and implicit LES combustion modelling to simulate an experimentally well-documented lean-premixed jet flame stabilized by a stoichiometric pilot. The validity of the implicit LES assumption is discussed and criteria are expressed in terms of subgrid scale Damköhler and Karlovitz numbers. Simulation results are compared to experimental data for velocity, temperature and species mass fractions of CH4, CO and OH. The simulation results highlight the validity and capability of the present approach for the flame and in general the combustion regime examined. A sensitivity analysis to the choice of the finite-rate chemistry mechanism is reported, this analysis indicates that the one and two-step global reaction mechanisms evaluated fail to capture the reaction layer with sufficient accuracy, while a 20-species skeletal mechanism reproduces the experimental observations accurately including the key finite-rate chemistry indicators CO and OH. The LES results are shown to be grid insensitive and that the grid resolution within the bounds examined is far less important compared to the sensitivity of the finite-rate chemistry representation. The results are analyzed in terms of the flame dynamics and it is shown that intense small scale mixing (high Karlovitz number) between the pilot and the jet is an important mechanism for the stabilization of the flame.

Large Eddy Simulation of a H2/N2 Lifted Flame in a Vitiated Co-Flow

A lifted turbulent H2/N2 flame in a vitiated co-flow is studied using Large Eddy Simulation together with a closure based on perfectly stirred reactors. A part of the closure, chemical look-up tables, are generated to close the filtered temperature equations and to compute local radical concentrations throughout the computational domain. The approach has been used to simulate a lifted turbulent flame. The results have been found to be insensitive to the combustion model employed and to the grid resolution. However, the results are very sensitive to the temperature of the co-flow stream and this result is well in line with previous findings. The numerical predictions were further compared to detailed experimental data obtained by Cabra et al. (2002). The agreement between the two sets of data is very good, indicating that the present approach predicts successfully the combustion process including the OH mass fractions. Finally, the LES data were used to study the flame dynamics and stabilization mechanisms.

STUDY OF FLAME STABILIZATION IN A SWIRLING COMBUSTOR USING A NEW FLAMELET FORMULATION

ABSTRACT The dynamics in a swirl-stabilized flame is studied using large eddy simulation (LES). We account for the effect of turbulence on the flame through a model based on a filtered flamelet technique. The model provides a consistent and robust reaction-diffusion expression for simulating the correct propagation of premixed flames. The filtered flamelet formulation has been implemented into a high-order-accurate LES code and used to study the flame stabilization and the combustion dynamics in a gas-turbine combustion chamber. The effects of inlet boundary conditions, in terms of velocity and equivalence ratio radial profiles, have been studied. The flow is found to be very sensitive to small changes in terms of flame shapes and anchoring position. The sensitivity of the results to the subgrid-scale flame thickness has also been investigated. The influence on the flame position is not significant. However, a too-large subgrid-scale flame thickness leads to different flame dynamics.

Proper Orthogonal Decomposition for Experimental Investigation of Flame Instabilities

An experimental investigation of both confined and unconfined flames on a Triple Annular Research Swirler (TARS) is presented. The paper focuses on post-processing techniques aiming at extracting information on the dynamics that are lost through classical statistics approach. POD together with a derived a-posteriori phase averaging procedure successfully reconstructed the dynamics of flames under thermo-acoustic instabilities in the confined case. For unconfined flames, an analysis of the azimuthal modes is performed.

Simulations of a turbulent flow past a sudden expansion: A sensitivity analysis

Large eddy simulation is used to study the flow behind a pair of symmetric backward-facing steps. As reported in the literature, the flow exhibits an asymmetric pattern characterized by the deflection of the jet toward one of the walls. The large eddy simulation results are compared with laser Doppler anemometry measurements showing the ability of the present numerical tool to capture the complex features of the flow. Furthermore, a sensitivity study is conducted to assess the influence of the grid resolution, the inflow boundary, the channel width, and the step size on the flowfield. The flow was found to be only weakly sensitive to the grid, assuring the quality of the simulation results. The inflow boundary influences the mean results only marginally unless low-frequency fluctuations are applied. In this case, the flowfield recovers a mean symmetry with suppression of the jet bending. The jet mean bending has also been shown to increase with the step size h and to decrease with increasing channel width.

A filtered flame approach for simulation of unsteady laminar premixed flames

The simulation of laminar flames consists of capturing the evolution of a very large number of species that may react within a broad range of time scales. It results in a highly non-linear stiff numerical problem that requires large computational resources. In the present paper, an alternative approach for the simulation of unsteady premixed flames is proposed. The approach focuses on describing the flame using a single scalar only (so-called progress variable) on relatively coarse grids. The unresolved details of the flame structure are analysed and described in term of spatial filtering. A model originally developed for large eddy simulation is discussed in the framework of unsteady laminar flames. The ability of the present approach to represent the filtered flame structure is validated against detailed numerical simulations of freely propagating laminar flames. Further, simulations of steady and unsteady laminar Bunsen flames are presented with a focus on the influence of the numerical grid and filter width upon the flame dynamics.

Large scale rotating motions in a multiple jets combustor

The flow dynamics of a multiple jet combustor is investigated using large eddy simulation. This particular combustor geometry is designed to mix hot combustion products from a central recirculation zone into the surrounding fuel/air jets. Using proper orthogonal decomposition, a large scale rotation of the central recirculation zone around the combustor axis was identified, though the averaged flow field does not exhibit any azimuthal motion. The rotating mode was found to have a relatively low frequency and to contain about 10% of the total turbulent kinetic energy. The occurrence of this mode was explained using the nonlinear delay saturation model.

Numerical Investigations of a Swirl-Stabilized Premixed Flame at Ultra-Wet Conditions

The present study focuses on the numerical investigation of a generic swirl-stabilized burner operated with methane at ultra-wet conditions. The burner is fed with a preheated homogeneous mixture formed by steam and air. As a set of operating conditions atmospheric pressure, inlet temperature of 673K , equivalence ratio of 0.85 and a steam content of 30 % is applied. Large eddy simulations have been performed to investigate the flow features. In a first step the non-reacting flow field was investigated with water as working medium. Comparison with Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV) and Laser-Doppler Velocimetry (LDV) measurements conducted in a water tunnel facility showed that an excellent agreement within the experimental uncertainty is obtained for the flow field. A dominant frequency in the turbulent energy spectrum was identified, which corresponds to the motion associated with a precessing vortex core (PVC). In order to investigate the reactive flow in a second step, a customized solver for handling low Mach number reacting flows based on an implicit LES approach was developed. As reaction mechanism a reduced 4 steps / 7 species global scheme was used. To compare the simulations qualitatively with a wet flame, OH chemiluminescence pictures serve as a reference. The simulations showed a more compact flame compared to the OH pictures. Nevertheless, the prolongation and position of the flame were found to be reasonable. The reduced mechanism captures the main effects, such as the reduction of the peak and mean temperatures. Furthermore, the presence of a PVC in the reacting flow could be determined and was not suppressed by heat-release.Copyright