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Abstract: The transport of flame surface density (FSD) in turbulent premixed flames has been studied using a database obtained from Direct Numerical Simulation (DNS). Three-dimensional freely propagating developing statistically planar turbulent premixed flames have been examined over a range of global Lewis numbers from 0.6 to 1.2. Simplified chemistry has been used and the emphasis is on the effects of Lewis number on FSD transport in the context of Reynolds-averaged closure modelling. Under the same initial conditions of turbulence, flames with low Lewis numbers are found to exhibit counter-gradient transport of FSD, whereas flames with higher Lewis numbers tend to exhibit gradient transport of FSD. Stronger heat release effects for lower Lewis number flames are found to lead to an increase in the positive (negative) value of the dilatation rate (normal strain rate) term in the FSD transport equation with decreasing Lewis number. The contribution of flame curvature to FSD transport is found to be influenced significantly by the effects of Lewis number on the curvature dependence of the magnitude of the reaction progress variable gradient, and on the combined reaction and normal diffusion components of displacement speed. The modelling of the various terms of the FSD transport equation has been analysed in detail and the performance of existing models is assessed with respect to the terms assembled from corresponding quantities extracted from DNS data. Based on this assessment, suitable models are identified which are able to address the effects of non-unity Lewis number on FSD transport, and new or modified models are suggested wherever necessary. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: The behaviour of the turbulent scalar flux in premixed flames has been studied using Direct Numerical Simulation (DNS) with emphasis on the effects of Lewis number in the context of Reynolds-averaged closure modelling. A database was obtained from DNS of three-dimensional freely propagating statistically planar turbulent premixed flames with simplified chemistry and a range of global Lewis numbers from 0.34 to 1.2. Under the same initial conditions of turbulence, flames with low Lewis numbers are found to exhibit counter-gradient transport, whereas flames with higher Lewis numbers tend to exhibit gradient transport. The Reynolds-averaged transport equation for the turbulent scalar flux is analysed in detail and the performance of existing models for the unclosed terms is assessed with respect to corresponding quantities extracted from DNS data. Based on this assessment, existing models which are able to address the effects of non-unity Lewis number on turbulent scalar flux transport are identified, and new or modified models are suggested wherever necessary. In this way, a complete set of closure models for the scalar flux transport equation is prescribed for use in Reynolds-Averaged Navier–Stokes simulations. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Three-dimensional direct numerical simulation (DNS) studies of premixed turbulent flames have been carried out using an inflow–outflow configuration at moderate Reynolds number (Re) and with single-step Arrhenius chemistry in the thin reaction zones regime. The compressible Navier–Stokes equations are solved together with a transport equation for a reaction progress variable (c). Results are obtained for several quantities of interest, including the gradient magnitude of the progress variable (&z.sfnc;∇c&z.sfnc;) and the displacement speed (Sd) of each progress variable isosurface. The probability density function (pdf) of displacement speed and the implications of the pdf shape are discussed in terms of the relative magnitude of reaction rate and molecular diffusion effects. The pdf of Sd itself, as well as the pdfs of its different components Sr, Sn, and St, in the present three-dimensional simulations is found to be consistent with previous results based on two-dimensional DNS with detailed chemistry. The validity of the assumption (ρSd)s≈ρ0SL is assessed on averaging ρSd over the isosurfaces of c across the flame brush. The unsteady effects of tangential strain rate (aT) and curvature (κm) on flame propagation are also considered. Curvature and displacement speed are found to be negatively correlated, while the conditional pdf of tangential strain rate and displacement speed at zero curvature locations also shows a negative correlation, again consistent with previous two-dimensional detailed-chemistry DNS. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Direct numerical simulation (DNS) results of turbulent MILD premixed and conventional (undiluted) premixed combustion have been investigated to shed light on the physical aspects of reaction zones and their morphology in MILD combustion. Results of a premixed case are used for comparative analyses. The analyses show that the regions with strong chemical activity in MILD combustion are distributed over a substantial portion of the computational domain unlike in the premixed case where these regions are confined to a small portion of the domain. Also, interactions of reaction zones are observed in MILD combustion with their spatial extent increasing with dilution level. These interactions give an appearance of distributed combustion for MILD conditions. The morphology of these reaction zones is investigated using the Minkowski functionals and shapefinders commonly employed in cosmology. Predominant sheet-like structures are observed for the premixed combustion case whereas a pancake-like structure is observed as the most probable shape for the MILD cases. Spatial and statistical analyses of various fluxes involved in a progress variable transport equation are conducted to study autoignitive or propagative characteristics of MILD reaction zones. The results suggest that there are local regions with autoignition, propagating-flames, and their coexistence for the conditions considered in this study. Typically, reaction dominated or ignition front and propagating-flame dominated regions are entangled for high dilution cases. Scalar gradient plays a strong role on whether reaction or propagating-flame dominated activities are favoured locally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Direct Numerical Simulations (DNS) of turbulent n-heptane sprays autoigniting at high pressure (P =24bar) and intermediate air temperature (T air =1000K) have been performed to investigate the physical mechanisms present under conditions where low-temperature chemistry is expected to be important. The initial turbulence in the carrier gas, the global equivalence ratio in the spray region, and the initial droplet size distribution of the spray were varied. Results show that spray ignition exhibits a spotty nature, with several kernels developing independently in those regions where the mixture fraction is close to its most reactive value ξ MR (as determined from homogeneous reactor calculations) and the scalar dissipation rate is low. Turbulence reduces the ignition delay time as it promotes mixing between air and the fuel vapor, eventually resulting in lower values of scalar dissipation. High values of the global equivalence ratio are responsible for a larger number of ignition kernels, due to the higher probability of finding regions where ξ = ξ MR. Spray polydispersity results in the occurrence of ignition over a wider range of mixture fraction values. This is a consequence of the inhomogeneities in the mixing field that characterize these sprays, where poorly mixed rich spots are seen to alternate with leaner ones which are well-mixed. The DNS simulations presented in this work have also been used to assess the applicability of the Conditional Moment Closure (CMC) method to the simulation of spray combustion. CMC is found to be a valid method for capturing spray autoignition, although care should be taken in the modelling of the unclosed terms appearing in the CMC equations. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: A parametric study of spark ignition in a uniform monodisperse turbulent spray is performed with complex chemistry three-dimensional Direct Numerical Simulations in order to improve the understanding of the structure of the ignition kernel. The heat produced by the kernel increases with the amount of fuel evaporated inside the spark volume. Moreover, the heat sink by evaporation is initially higher than the heat release and can have a negative effect on ignition. With the sprays investigated, heat release occurs over a large range of mixture fractions, being high within the nominal flammability limits and finite but low below the lean flammability limit. The burning of very lean regions is attributed to the diffusion of heat and species from regions of high heat release, and from the spark, to lean regions. Two modes of spray ignition are reported. With a relatively dilute spray, nominally flammable material exists only near the droplets. Reaction zones are created locally near the droplets and have a non-premixed character. They spread from droplet to droplet through a very lean interdroplet spacing. With a dense spray, the hot spark region is rich due to substantial evaporation but the cold region remains lean. In between, a large surface of flammable material is generated by evaporation. Ignition occurs there and a large reaction zone propagates from the rich burned region to the cold lean region. This flame is wrinkled due to the stratified mixture fraction field and evaporative cooling. In the dilute spray, the reaction front curvature pdf contains high values associated with single droplet combustion, while in the dense spray, the curvature is lower and closer to the curvature associated with gaseous fuel ignition kernels. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: A parametric study of forced ignition at the mixing layer between air and air carrying fine monosized fuel droplets is done through one-step chemistry direct numerical simulations to determine the influence of the size and volatility of the droplets, the spark location, the droplet-air mixing layer initial thickness and the turbulence intensity on the ignition success and the subsequent flame propagation. The propagation is analyzed in terms of edge flame displacement speed, which has not been studied before for turbulent edge spray flames. Spark ignition successfully resulted in a tribrachial flame if enough fuel vapour was available at the spark location, which occurred when the local droplet number density was high. Ignition was achieved even when the spark was offset from the spray, on the air side, due to the diffusion of heat from the spark, provided droplets evaporated rapidly. Large kernels were obtained by sparking close to the spray, since fuel was more readily available. At long times after the spark, for all flames studied, the probability density function of the displacement speed was wide, with a mean value in the range , with the laminar burning velocity of a stoichiometric gaseous premixed flame. This value is close to the mean displacement speed in turbulent edge flames with gaseous fuel. The displacement speed was negatively correlated with curvature. The detrimental effect of curvature was attenuated with a large initial kernel and by increasing the thickness of the mixing layer. The mixing layer was thicker when evaporation was slow and the turbulence intensity higher. However, high turbulence intensity also distorted the kernel which could lead to high values of curvature. The edge flame reaction component increased when the maximum temperature coincided with the stoichiometric contour. The results are consistent with the limited available experimental evidence and provide insights into the processes associated with ignition of practical spray flames. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Autoignition of n-heptane sprays in a methane/air mixture and the subsequent methane premixed flame ignition, a constant volume configuration relevant to pilot-ignited dual fuel engines, was investigated by DNS. It was found that reducing the pilot fuel quantity, increases its autoignition time. This is attributed to the faster disappearance of the most reactive mixture fraction (predicted from homogeneous reactor calculations) which is quite rich. Consequently, ignition of the n-heptane occurs at leaner mixtures. The premixed methane flame is eventually ignited due to heating gained by the pressure rise caused by the n-heptane oxidation, and heat and mass transfer of intermediates from the n-heptane autoignition kernels. For large amounts of the pilot fuel, the combustion of the n-heptane results in significant adiabatic compression of the methane–air mixture. Hence the slow methane oxidation is accelerated and is further promoted by the presence of species in the oxidizer stream originating from the already ignited regions. For small amounts of the pilot fuel intermediates reach the oxidizer stream faster due to the very lean mixtures surrounding the n-heptane ignition kernels. Therefore, the premixed methane oxidation is initiated at intermediate temperatures. Depending on the amount of n-heptane, different statistical behaviour of the methane oxidation is observed when this is investigated in a reaction progress variable space. In particular for large amounts of n-heptane the methane oxidation follows roughly an autoignition regime, whereas for small amounts of n-heptane methane oxidation is similar to a canonical premixed flame. The data can be used for validation of various turbulent combustion models for dual-fuel combustion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Measurements of 3D turbulent flame surface area and burnt gas were carried out for spherically expanding flames in different methane-air and hydrogen-air mixtures using a high frequency swinging laser sheet technique based on Mie scattering. The corresponding turbulent burning velocities were measured simultaneously using the rate of pressure rise, at turbulence rms velocities between 0.3 and 2.0 m/s. The ratio of turbulent burning velocity enhancement u t m / u l to flame surface area enhancement A 3 D / a 3 D was measured as a function of turbulence rms velocity. For the methane-air flames, the turbulent burning velocity enhancement is close to that of the flame surface area enhancement. For the hydrogen-air flames, the former can exceed the latter by a factor of up to 6 at the largest values of turbulence rms velocity tested. The large discrepancy suggests that in the case of hydrogen-air flames, the measured rate of burning per unit flame area is significantly enhanced by the turbulence. For the reconstructed A 3 D / a 3 D , the corresponding A 2 D / a 2 D are also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The effects of tangential strain rate and curvature on the surface density function (SDF) and on source terms within the SDF transport equation are studied for lean methane–air and hydrogen–air flames using two-dimensional direct numerical simulations with detailed chemistry. A positive correlation is observed between the SDF and the tangential strain rate, and this is explained in terms of the interaction between the local tangential strain rate and the dilatation rate due to heat release. Curvature is also seen to affect the SDF through the curvature response of both tangential strain rate and dilatation rate on a given flame isosurface. Strain rate and curvature are found to have an appreciable effect on several terms of the SDF transport equation. The SDF straining term in both methane and hydrogen flames is correlated positively with tangential strain rate, as expected, and is also correlated negatively with curvature. For methane flames, the SDF propagation term is found to correlate negatively with flame curvature toward the reactant side of the flame and positively toward the product side. By contrast, for hydrogen flames the SDF propagation term is negatively correlated with curvature throughout the flame brush. The variation of the SDF curvature term with local flame curvature for both methane and hydrogen flames is found to be nonlinear due to the additional stretch induced by the tangential diffusion component of the displacement speed. Physical explanations are provided for all of these effects, and the modeling implications are considered in detail. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Acoustically forced lean premixed turbulent bluff-body stabilized flames are investigated using turbulent combustion CFD. The calculations simulate aspects of the experimental investigation by Balachandran et al. [R. Balachandran, B. Ayoola, C. Kaminski, A. Dowling, E. Mastorakos, Combust. Flame 143 (2005) 37–55] and focus on the amplitude dependence of the flame response. For the frequencies of interest in this investigation an unsteady Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes (URANS) approach is appropriate. The combustion is represented using a modified laminar flamelet approach with an algebraic representation of the flame surface density. The predictions are compared with flame surface density (FSD) and OH∗ chemiluminescence measurements. In the experiments the response of the flame has been quantified by means of a number of single-frequency, amplitude-dependent transfer functions. The predicted flame shape and position are in good agreement with the experiment. The dynamic response of the flame to inlet velocity forcing is also well captured by the calculations. At moderate frequencies nonlinear behavior of the transfer functions is observed as the forcing amplitude is increased. In the experiments this nonlinearity was attributed in part to the rollup of the reacting shear layer into vortices and in part to the collision of the inner and outer flame sheets. This transition to nonlinearity is also observed in the transfer functions obtained from the predictions. Furthermore, the vortex shedding and flame-sheet collapse may be seen in snapshots of the predicted flow field taken throughout the forcing cycle. The URANS methodology successfully predicts the behavior of the forced premixed turbulent flames and captures the effects of saturation in the transfer function of the response of the heat release to velocity fluctuations. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Strain rate and curvature effects on the propagation of turbulent premixed flame kernels have been investigated in the thin-reaction-zones regime using three-dimensional compressible direct numerical simulations (DNS) with single-step Arrhenius chemistry. An initially spherical laminar flame kernel is allowed to interact with the surrounding turbulent fluid motion to provide a propagating turbulent flame with a strong mean spherical curvature. The statistical behavior of the local displacement speed in response to strain and curvature is investigated in detail. The results demonstrate clearly that the mean curvature inherent to the flame kernel configuration has a significant influence on the propagation of the flame. It has been found that the mean density-weighted displacement speed in the case of flame kernels varies significantly over the flame brush and remains different from (where is the reactant density and is laminar flame speed), unlike statistically planar flames. It is also shown that the magnitude of reaction progress variable gradient is negatively correlated with curvature in the case of flame kernels, in contrast to the weak correlation between and curvature in the case of planar flames. This correlation induces a net positive correlation between the combined reaction and normal diffusion components of displacement speed and curvature in flame kernels, whereas the previous studies based on statistically planar flames did not observe any appreciable correlation between and curvature. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Three-dimensional carrier-phase Direct Numerical Simulations (DNS), combined with a Lagrangian representation of individual droplets, have been employed in this parametric study to examine the physical effects of liquid water mist interacting with laminar and turbulent premixed stoichiometric n-heptane/air flames. Significant reductions of flame temperature and burning velocity have been observed in the presence of water droplets. In agreement with the laws governing evaporation, a strongly non-linear influence of the droplet size on the overall burning rate has been noted, whereas the influence of water loading is fairly linear. Different regimes of droplet-flame interaction are known to exist and this has been investigated by numerical experiments focusing on the influence of the latent heat of vaporization. When using realistic fluid properties of water, the cooling effect associated to evaporating droplets outweighs the dilution effect due to the local decrease of fuel and oxidizer concentrations. Under turbulent conditions, the effectiveness of the droplets in reducing the overall burning rate changes owing to the transient nature of the droplet-flame interaction. Furthermore, it was found that the evaporating droplets significantly diminish the flame-generated turbulence and this leads to weaker turbulent wrinkling of the flame surface as compared to gaseous premixed reference simulations without droplets. Based on a comparison of the time scales representing droplet evaporation and the droplet residence time within the flame, a reduced-order model is proposed to account for both the cooling and dilution effects with respect to flame temperature and laminar burning velocity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]