Masayasu Shimura

A Fractal Dynamic SGS Combustion Model for Large Eddy Simulation of Turbulent Premixed Flames

ABSTRACT Direct numerical simulation of a turbulent hydrogen-air premixed plane jet flame is performed to investigate fractal characteristics and to evaluate the fractal dynamic subgrid scale (FDSGS) combustion model. The DNS results show that the fractal dimension of flame surfaces increases with the downstream distance, and the fractal dimension computed using a 3D box-counting method reaches about 2.54 in the region where turbulence is developed by mean shear. An inner cutoff representation employed in the FDSGS combustion model could be used in large eddy simulations (LES) of complicated combustion problems. Static tests show that the procedure applied in the FDSGS combustion model adequately predicts the fractal dimension, Kolmogorov length scale, and flame surface area despite the presence of strong mean shear. Dynamic model evaluations are also carried out by conducting a series of LES using the FDSGS and other combustion models. In the dynamic tests, the mean temperature distributions and peak positions of variations of a reaction progress variable fluctuation in the transverse direction obtained from the LES with the FDSGS combustion model show good agreement with the filtered DNS fields. The present evaluation also revealed that one of the strengths in the FDSGS combustion modeling approach is that the model does not require SGS turbulent velocity fluctuation, since modeling of this quantity is straightforward for neither homogeneous turbulence nor the turbulent shear flows.

DNS of Supercritical Carbon Dioxide Turbulent Channel Flow

Direct numerical simulation (DNS) of supercritical CO2 turbulent channel flow has been performed to investigate the heat transfer mechanism of supercritical fluid. Due to effects of the mean density variation in the wall normal direction, mean velocity in the cooling region becomes high compared with that in the heating region. The mean width between high- and low-speed streaks near the wall decreases in the cooling region. From the turbulent kinetic energy budget, it is found that compressibility effects related with pressure fluctuation and dilatation of velocity fluctuation can be ignored even for supercritical condition. However, the effect of density fluctuation on turbulent kinetic energy cannot be ignored. In the cooling region, low kinematic viscosity and high thermal conductivity in the low speed streaks modify fine scale structure and turbulent transport of temperature, which results in high Nusselt number in the cooling condition of the supercritical CO2.

Micro particle image velocimetry investigation of near-wall behaviors of tumble enhanced flow in an internal combustion engine

A micro particle image velocimetry has been performed to investigate tumble enhanced flow characteristics near piston top surface of a motored internal combustion engine for three inlet valve open timing (−30, −15, 0 crank angle degrees). Particle image velocimetry was conducted at 340, 350 and 360 crank angle degrees of the end of the compression stroke at the constant motored speed of 2000 r/min. The measurement region was 3.2 mm × 1.5 mm on the piston top including central axis of the cylinder. The spatial resolution of particle image velocimetry in the wall-normal direction was 75 µm and the vector spacing was 37.5 µm. The first velocity vector is located about 60 µm from the piston top surface. The micro particle image velocimetry measurements revealed that the ensemble-averaged flow near the piston top is not close to the turbulent boundary layer and rather has tendency of the Blasius theorem, whereas fluctuation root-mean-square velocity near the wall is not low. This result shows that revision of a wall heat transfer model based on an assumption of the proper characteristics of flow field near the piston top is required for more accurate prediction of heat flux in gasoline engines.

Effects of Turbulence on Ignition of Methane–Air and n-Heptane–Air Fully Premixed Mixtures

ABSTRACT We performed direct numerical simulations (DNS) for the two-dimensional (2D) turbulent ignition of ultra-lean methane–air and n-heptane–air mixtures with a high exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) rate at high pressure to determine the ignition criteria and ignition delay time. We defined an initial high-temperature region as an ignition kernel and conducted one-dimensional preliminary DNS to determine the ignition criteria in terms of the ignition source energy and the thermal conduction from the ignition kernel during the induction period. Additionally, we analyzed the 2D DNS results to clarify the influence of the turbulent strain rate on the ignition delay time and the mechanism by which the turbulence influences the establishment of the ignition kernel. We observed that the distribution of eddies and the strain rate in the high-temperature region influences the success or failure of the ignition process and, therefore, the ignition delay time. The ignition delay time increases proportionally to the square of strain rate averaged in the high concentration region of the intermediate species during the induction period. This suggests that the ignition in a turbulent field is based on the balance between the influence of a locally averaged strain rate in the preheating region and the chemical (flame) time scale. Based on these observations, a simple model for the ignition delay time was constructed based on the mean strain rate in the high concentration region of the intermediate species during the induction period. The strain rate averaged in the high concentration region of the intermediate species was normalized by using the laminar burning velocity and the laminar thermal flame thickness. Additionally, the ignition delay time was normalized by the ignition delay time of the corresponding laminar case, yielding the same ignition model/criterion for both examined fuels, which could be extended to other mixtures.

Flame Brush Structure of H2-Air Turbulent Premixed Flames at High Reynolds Numbers

Three-dimensional direct numerical simulations (DNSs) of turbulent premixed planar, jet and V flames of hydrogen-air mixture have been conducted to investigate the flame brush and the local flame structures at high Reynolds number turbulences. The detail kinetic mechanism including 12 reactive species and 27 elementary reactions was used to represent the hydrogen-air reaction. For planar flame, flame front is highly fluctuating, and multi-layer structure, multiply-folded flame front and unburned mixture island which lead to corresponding increase of the flame brush thickness can be observed. The flame brush thickness of the planar flame is relatively uniform along the flame front, and is about 2∼3 times the integral length scale (l), which is defined from an energy spectrum. For the jet and V flames, the flame brush thicknesses grow with the streamwise direction from about 0.5∼1 times the integral length scale (l) to about 2∼3 times the integral length scale (l) due to the highly fluctuating flame front at the downstream region.Copyright