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Through energy and exergy analysis, the present work revisits the combustion processes generated using different fuels (CH4, C3H8, H2, LPG, Natural gas and Biogas) under the same operating conditions. First, numerical computations, in which the turbulent dynamic k-ϵ model coupled with a probability density function (PDF) approach together with different sub-models that ensure the reliability of the results, are used. Then, the First and Second Laws of thermodynamics are applied to all fuel combustion cases considered previously to predict the energy loss, exergy destruction and their corresponding efficiencies. Next, variations in the air factor, the air inlet temperature and the fuel inlet temperatures are considered to analyse the response of combustion system performance as well as energy and exergy losses for the different fuels under investigation. The results show an amelioration of combustion parameters for the mixture of fuel and air using values of λ greater than 1. Also, the preheating of the inlet air temperature has a positive effect on energetic parameters. However, preheating the inlet fuel does not take a considerable role in the efficiency amelioration and loss reduction of the combustion system. It further turns out that biogas features higher energy efficiency compared to other fuels, at approximately 89.64%, while hydrogen fuel exhibits higher exergy efficiency at around 78.70% followed by biogas with 74.96%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

G-equations are popular level set Hamilton–Jacobi nonlinear partial differential equations (PDEs) of first or second order arising in turbulent combustion. Characterizing the effective burning velocity (also known as the turbulent burning velocity) is a fundamental problem there. We review relevant studies of the G-equation models with a focus on both the existence of effective burning velocity (homogenization), and its dependence on physical and geometric parameters (flow intensity and curvature effect) through representative examples. The corresponding physical background is also presented to provide motivations for mathematical problems of interest. The lack of coercivity of Hamiltonian is a hallmark of G-equations. When either the curvature of the level set or the strain effect of fluid flows is accounted for, the Hamiltonian becomes highly nonconvex and nonlinear. In the absence of coercivity and convexity, the PDE (Eulerian) approach suffers from insufficient compactness to establish averaging (homogenization). We review and illustrate a suite of Lagrangian tools, most notably min-max (max-min) game representations of curvature and strain G-equations, working in tandem with analysis of streamline structures of fluid flows and PDEs. We discuss open problems for future development in this emerging area of dynamic game analysis for averaging noncoercive, nonconvex, and nonlinear PDEs such as geometric (curvature-dependent) PDEs with advection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The combustor is the core component of the scramjet engine, and stable combustion is the prerequisite for the efficient operation of the scramjet engine. This paper investigates combustion stability in a combustor with a thin strut for oxygen supplementation at the trailing edge. LES (Large eddy simulation) was carried out under the combustor inlet conditions of Ma = 2.8, T t = 1680 K, and P t = 1.87 MPa. The results show that as the amount of oxygen supplementation inside the combustor increases, the oscillation forward propagation characteristics of the flame front inside the combustor are formed. First, the combustion instability phenomenon of the flame inside the combustor is analyzed, and then the oscillation frequency of the flame is analyzed by FFT (Fast Fourier Transform) of the flame front and pressure and DMD (Dynamic Mode Decomposition) of the velocity field within one cycle. Finally, the flame forward propagation mechanism inside the combustor is analyzed by pressure-velocity-heat release distribution. The results show that the injection of excess oxygen inside the combustor forms a strong coupling phenomenon of flow and combustion, and the premixed gas downstream of the trailing edge of the strut forms a state of slow combustion to explosion, forming a flame propagation forward and periodic oscillation phenomenon. • LES method is used to capture the flame oscillation behavior with different oxygen supplementation. • The multi-frequency characteristics of combustion oscillations are obtained by using spectrum analysis. • Different combustion modes in flame oscillation and stable regions are discussed. • The mechanism of flame oscillation and propagation upstream is discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Conditional Source-term Estimation (CSE) is a turbulence-chemistry interaction model similar to CMC, except that the conditional scalars are calculated from unconditional ones using an integral equation. This problem is inherently ill-posed and should be regularised. Recently, an efficient regularisation approach based on Bernstein polynomial expansion was proposed by Mahdipour and Salehi (Combust. Flame, 2022) in an a priori analysis using DNS data. This work implements this approach in a reacting flow solver, and two laboratory-scale turbulent premixed flames are simulated in the Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) context. The turbulent intensity in the first flame is low, and the results show that, unlike the conventional CSE approach, the new approach can accurately predict the flamelet conditional averages. Furthermore, the predicted averaged velocity field and major and minor species mass fractions compare favourably with the experimental measurements. The turbulent intensity in the second flame is relatively higher, and the predicted conditional averages should deviate from an unstrained laminar flame solution. The new approach can correctly predict this trend as well as the flame height in this flame. The computational cost of the new CSE approach is also substantially reduced compared to the regular CSE approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ignition and combustion behavior in the second stage of a sequential combustor are investigated numerically at atmospheric pressure for pure CH 4 fueling and for two CH 4 - H 2 fuel blends in 24:1 and 49:1 mass ratios , respectively, using Large Eddy Simulation (LES). Pure CH 4 fueling results in a turbulent propagating flame anchored by the hot gas recirculation zones developed near the inlet of the sequential combustion chamber. As the H 2 content increases, the combustion process changes drastically, with multiple auto-ignition kernels produced upstream of the main flame brush. Analysis of the explosive modes indicates that, for the highest H 2 amount investigated, flame stabilization in the combustion chamber is strongly supported by auto-ignition chemistry. The analysis of fuel decomposition pathways highlights that radicals advected from the first stage flame, in particular OH, induce a rapid fuel decomposition and cause the reactivity enhancement that leads to auto-ignition upstream of the sequential flame. This behavior is promoted by the relatively large mass fraction of OH radicals found in the flow reaching the second stage, which is approximately one order of magnitude greater than it would be at chemical equilibrium. The importance of the out-of-equilibrium vitiated air on the ignition behavior is proven via an additional LES that features weak auto-ignition kernel formation when equilibrium is artificially imposed. It is therefore concluded that parameters affecting the relaxation towards chemical equilibrium of the vitiated flow can have an important influence on the operability of sequential combustors fueled with varying fractions of H 2 blending. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This numerical simulation studied the effect of H2-CH4 flame equivalence ratio on turbulent premixed combustion at 50%-50% concentration (by volume). The equivalence ratio was varied from 0.45 to 1.0 in 0.5 increments for 126 kW operating power, matching a 3.3 bar inlet reactant pressure. Tests utilized a gas turbine combustor. The thermal field, flow field, and pollutant emissions (NOx and CO) underwent rigorous analysis. The modelling framework applied steady Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) equations coupled to a probability density function (PDF) approach for turbulence-chemistry interactions and a NOx formation model. Results showed increasing equivalence ratio from 0.45 to 1.0 elevated temperature approximately 900 K, significantly promoting NOx up to 1600 ppm and CO beyond 1900 ppm. However, equivalence ratio changes minimally impacted the overall flow field, maintaining stabilized flames. These findings provide new insight on thermochemical effects and flame stability in gas turbine (G.T) combustors across a range of equivalence ratios relevant for clean, high-pressure H2-CH4 combustion. The combined RANS-PDF methodology enables predictive simulation of turbulence, kinetics, emissions, and flame stability to guide optimal fuel-air ratio selection and low-emission combustor design. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A quasi-steady, CFD-based modeling approach is employed to investigate the heat loading within a small package of twenty-five 18650 Li-ion cells. The quasi-steady approach allows for computationally efficient simulations to capture the compressible and turbulent flow field through the safety vent structure and out into the space surrounding a failing cell. Combustion of vent gases leads to high heat loading on neighboring cells and nearby surfaces. Heat transfer mechanisms within the enclosure include convection from hot gases, radiation from the participating medium, and radiation exchange between surfaces. Simulations provide insight into the magnitude of each heat transfer mechanism, and the spatial distribution of heat flux on nearby cells and surfaces within the pack. The complex geometry of the safety vent geometry resulted in an asymmetric jet flow pattern, which induces highly localized impingement heat transfer on specific cells within the enclosure. Radiation from hot surfaces was more significant than radiation from hot gases and soot to neighboring cells. The quasi-steady simulations may be used in the future to develop reduced-order heat transfer models that include the effects of venting and combustion on propagating failure.

The higher-order DNS simulations were carried out to study the turbulent jet combustion characteristics of pure ammonia and ammonia-hydrogen mixtures at the auto-ignition condition. It is found that blending just 5% H 2 into ammonia can significantly shorten its ignition delay time, enhance the reactive scalar dissipation rate, and thus produce much more fine structures in the turbulence domain. During the turbulent ignition process, the low-temperature ignition firstly occurred at the most reactive mixture fraction (ξ MR) that is located on the lean-side due to the spontaneous reactions, then the ignited reactive fronts propagated towards rich side by the deflagrative mode, which eventually ignited the high-temperature reactions near the stoichiometric mixture fraction (ξ st). The advancement of early-phase ignition at ξ MR as well as speed up of the subsequent deflagrative propagation was responsible for the acceleration of ammonia flame ignition in turbulence. The early-phase flame propagation was driven by chemical reactions, while in the high temperature post-ignition phase, flame curvature due to the sheared turbulence with a neutralizing balance with the normal diffusion was responsible for the motionlessness of reaction front at a fixed leaner mixture fraction near ξ st. The majority triple points with moderate scalar dissipation rate (χ) were propagated by the normal edge-flame propagation mode; in the ultra-lean fluids with low χ , the edge-flame propagation was governed by expanding flame kernels; and in the fluids with high χ , flame folding played a leading role in the ξ st iso-surface ignition. In overall, the flame folding regime was dominated in the turbulent edge flame propagation along the ξ st iso-surface. In spite of its marginal contribution to the global heat production and temperature rise, the deflagrative mode plays a significant role in regulating the ignition timing and thus optimizing the ammonia engine performance. • Conditional statistics and displacement speed analysis reveals the combustion modes. • Deflagrative mode is most important to the regulation of engine ignition timing. • Ammonia combustion with H 2 addition more likely resembles the homogenous ignition. • Tangential and normal diffusion balance leads to post-ignition flame anchor near ξ st. • Flame folding regime governs edge-flame propagation along the stoichiometry surface. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Sydney Flame provides an excellent framework for systematic analysis of premixed, partially premixed and non-premixed methane/air combustion. It represents (depending on the axial position from the fuel inlet) non-premixed, partially premixed and fully premixed combustion. We simulate the test case FJ200-5GP-Lr75-57, which represents the partially premixed mode. Large-eddy simulations (LES) are conducted using a flame surface density combustion model (FSD) using one-step chemistry and an artificially thickened flame model (ATF) with a global two-step and an analytically reduced multi-step chemistry reaction mechanism. Unity Lewis numbers are assumed ( L e = 1 ) at first. The FSD and ATF models are compared using the same computational mesh, numerical scheme and boundary conditions. Both models will be analysed regarding their accuracy and computational efficiency in the regime of partially premixed combustion. A comparison of the results points out the strengths and weaknesses of the FSD models. The FSD model with inclusion of flame stretch effects yields good agreement with mean experimental temperature, CO2 and H2O mass fraction distributions in contrast to the ATF model using the global two-step mechanism, which overestimates downstream temperature, CO2 and H2O mass fractions. The FSD model performs well in all regions, which are dominated first by premixed, then partially premixed and finally non-premixed combustion along the flame. The ATF multi-step chemistry shows good results only in the premixed mode region, while mean temperature, CO2 and mass fractions are overestimated in the non-premixed mode regions at higher mixture fraction values. Including differential diffusion into the transport equations improved the ATF model results in comparison with experiments. A mesh study revealed, that the ATF model performs only after mesh refinement. In particular results are improved in the non-premixed combustion region. In contrast, the FSD model is less resolution sensitive and performs very well for both meshes. An evaluation of the Wasserstein metric provides a quantitative assessment of different ATF model setups on simulation accuracy. Finally, computational times for all simulation setups are compared. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study conducts experimental and numerical investigations on a stagnation-point, reverse-flow combustor to examine the effect of its design features on the combustion behavior and emission characteristics of non-premixed, turbulent hydrogen/air flames. The study covers a wide range of equivalence ratios, from ultra-lean to stoichiometric, and thermal power inputs varying between 5 kW and 20 kW. The main motivation behind this design is to achieve passive recirculation of flue gas within the combustor to enhance dilution of the incoming charge, thus potentially leading to relatively uniform thermal fields, lower temperatures, and suppressed NO x emissions. This design concept is implemented in a micro gas turbine – a practical energy conversion device tapped to play a major role in decarbonizing CHP systems suitable for small-scale industries. Optical chemiluminescence measurements, in addition to thermocouple-based temperature and Quantum Cascade Laser (QCL) spectroscopy-based exhaust emissions measurements, were conducted for all the test cases. Spatial OH* signal intensity is used as heat release signature to identify distinct features of the test flames, allowing for useful information on the nature and dynamics of the combustion process within the combustor. The results show stable hydrogen/air flames for all the operating conditions; however, a more distributed combustion is observed at higher powers for all the given equivalence ratios. Relatively higher NO x emissions at φ >0.2 suggest the lower achieved mixing between burnt and fresh gases, particularly in the non-preheated case, prevent a thorough dilution of the fresh mixture. The latter is necessary to achieve low-temperature, uniform thermal fields – an essential for low thermal NO x emissions in gas turbine combustors. Further, CFD results show that preheating considerably changes flow field dynamics and recirculation pattern for better mixing; however, this also dramatically increases thermal NO x emission, with the lowest levels observed at φ = 0.2, while the peak occurs at φ = 0.4. Finally, a 'brute-force' sensitivity analysis shows that thermal NO and NNH pathways contribute the most to NO formation in hydrogen/air flames. • The viability of hydrogen as a carbon-free alternative fuel for micro gas turbines is studied. • Preheating extends hydrogen flame stability at ultra-lean conditions. • Fuel injection velocity strongly affects the extent of charge dilution. • Effectiveness of recirculation depends upon the degree of mixing. • Thermal NO and NNH pathways contribute the most to NO formation in H 2 flames. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Partially Stirred Reactor (PaSR) model is carried out for the ammonia-air combustion system by means of stochastic modeling, namely by solving the transport equation for the joint Probability Density Function (PDF). The turbulent mixing is accounted for by the Linear Mean-Square Estimation (LMSE) mixing model. Notwithstanding the simplified nature of the PaSR modeling, the transported-PDF method enables capturing the effect of mixing frequency on the combustion system, especially the NOx emission. Since the chemical source term is in a closed form in the transported-PDF method, it allows us to apply different chemical mechanisms to explore, whether the set of elementary reactions that are identified as important for the prediction of NOx in the PaSR model is sensitive to the choice of chemical mechanisms. Furthermore, the effect of the residence time in the PaSR model has also been studied, and compared with those in the Perfectly Stirred Reactor (PSR) model (infinite large mixing frequency). Moreover, since the ammonia under oxygen enrichment shows some similar combustion behaviors in terms of e.g. laminar burning velocity as the ammonia under hydrogen enrichment, how large the difference of thermo-kinetic states (e.g. temperature and NOx emission) predicted by PaSR models and in laminar premixed flame configuration is also investigated. A further discussion focuses on the effect of thermal radiation, where the radiative heat loss roles in the prediction of NOx for the turbulent simulation is examined. By using the optically thin approximation model, it is shown that the thermal radiation exhibits little effect on the considered combustion systems within a typical turbulent time-scale. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Large eddy simulation was employed to simulate the effects of different vane angles of the primary and pilot stages on the ignition process of a combustor under normal temperature and pressure conditions. The simulation results of different vane angles of the pilot stage were then verified experimentally. Kernel initiation and flame propagation in the cases of ignition success and failure were analysed. It was found that in the ignition failure case, the flame kernels are confined to the downstream zones of the venturi and cannot propagate radially, and almost no negative displacement exists in the axial direction. However, in the ignition success case, sub-fire kernels are always present outside the radial boundary of the primary stage. Five ignition modes were finally proposed: (I1) typical ignition, (I2) relatively high-speed ignition, (I3) single-kernel alternating dominant, (I4) main kernel dominant, and (I5) dual-kernel dominant modes. Using high-speed photography, the flame shape changes and ignition characteristics in the cases of successful and failed ignition with different pilot-stage vane angles were investigated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Data from all spatial locations of nine turbulent flames in the Cambridge/Sandia swirl database are combined to study how the choice of scalar variables in conditional moment closure (CMC) type approaches affect the conditional spatial fluctuations of reactive scalars. In order to investigate the influence of swirl and stratification, two additional data-sets have been constructed. Principal component analysis (PCA) is applied to help identify the number of scalar variables and the most appropriate choices to describe the composition space. Two PCA scaling methods have been adopted, namely Pareto and Auto-scaling. Regardless of the data-set investigated and the scaling method used, the results suggest that a single principal component correlated with temperature accounted for the largest variance. For the first moment hypothesis, four progress variable, c, definitions identified by PCA are selected as conditioning variables to investigate the conditional fluctuations and normalised RMS of various species and temperature from all three databases at all axial locations. The results indicate that two control variables based on mixture fraction, Z, and progress variable significantly reduce the conditional fluctuations of scalars compared to a single variable. The selection of progress variables had minimal effects on the RMS of conditional fluctuations for all tested conditions, although a slight reduction of conditional fluctuations was found for the temperature-based progress variable, which can potentially help the further extension of CMC-based models in different flame configurations. The present study also shows that using Z and c (regardless of its definition) as two conditioning scalars enables the detachment of the thermo-chemical state from space, swirl and stratification effects. This suggests that adopting a doubly conditioned source term estimation (DCSE) approach might successfully predict the considered set of flames, assuming that ensembles are divided along the axial direction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The effects of Nanosecond Repetitively Pulsed Discharges (NRPDs) on the second stage flame of a sequential combustor is investigated using numerical tools supported by experiments. In this work, Large Eddy Simulations (LESs) with an accurate description of the combustion chemistry and a simplified model of the plasma kinetics are performed and successfully reproduce experimental observations of the combustion enhancement obtained with NRPDs. Detailed plasma kinetics calculations and experimental data demonstrate that the simplified plasma modelling retrieves the main energetic routes for the dissipation of the electron energy during the discharges. This model initially developed for discharges in pure air, is still valid for the highly air-diluted mixture considered in this study. The results of the LESs are analyzed to explain the underlying physics. Chemical Explosive Mode Analysis (CEMA) is used to identify the combustion modes of the ignition kernels, which result from the fast gas heating and the radical production by the NRPDs. These ignition kernels quickly give rise to propagating flames, advected through the sequential burner. Moreover, it is shown that the oxygen atoms produced by the Non-Equilibrium Plasma (NEP) dramatically accelerate the oxidation of the fuel. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper systematically develops a high-fidelity turbulent combustion surrogate model using deep learning. We construct a surrogate model to simulate the turbulent combustion process in real time, based on a state-of-the-art spatiotemporal forecasting neural network. To address the issue of shifted distribution in autoregressive long-term prediction, two training techniques are proposed: unrolled training and injecting noise training. These techniques significantly improve the stability and robustness of the model. Two datasets of turbulent combustion in a combustor with cavity and a vitiated co-flow burner (Cabra burner) have been generated for model validation. The effects of model architecture, unrolled time, noise amplitude, and training dataset size on the long-term predictive performance are explored. The well-trained model can be applicable to new cases by extrapolation and give spatially and temporally consistent results in long-term predictions for turbulent reacting flows that are highly unsteady.

The LES of partially premixed turbulent flame MRB in TU Darmstadt was conducted based on the flamelet-tabulated combustion model FGM, and effects of premixed and partially premixed tabulations on the modelling results were studied. The results show that, different methods of tabulation exhibit limited influences on the predictions of the flame structure, velocity, and major species, but using a partially premixed tabulation largely improves the reliability of modelling intermediate minor species CO and H2. The underlying reason lies in a better inclusion of the fuel-air mixing effects through the partially premixed tabulation, which is built based on laminar counter-flow flames. Adding extra transport equations for the intermediate species improves the predictions of intermediate species, especially given a premixed tabulation adopted; meanwhile, the stretch effects in this turbulent flame are ignorable. The results are significant to guide the high-fidelity simulation of partially premixed turbulent flames based on the flamelet-tabulated combustion model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For exploring the influences of chemical reaction on the turbulent fluctuations of gas species concentrations, the reaction source terms in the transport equations for the concentration fluctuation moments are analyzed. It is found that the reaction source terms taken from the equations for the fuel-oxygen, fuel, and oxygen concentration fluctuation moments have a fixed relationship among them. The reaction source terms are not pure production or dissipation terms and they play a redistribution role in these equations. The algebraic concentration moment (ACM)-probability density function (PDF) turbulent combustion model is evaluated. It indicates that the reaction source terms in the modeled transport equations and the resultant explicit algebraic expressions for the concentration fluctuation moments all satisfy the fixed relationship. The reaction source terms serve as the redistribution terms in the explicit expressions for the concentration fluctuation moments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A fractal engine simulation (FES) sub-model was integrated into three-dimensional simulations for modeling turbulent combustion for a gasoline direct injection (GDI) engine. The FES model assumes that the effects of turbulence on flame propagation are to wrinkle and stretch the flame, and fractal geometry is used to predict the surface area increase and thus the turbulent burning velocity. Different formulas for the four sequential stages of combustion in SI engines are proposed to account for the changing effects of turbulence throughout the combustion process. However, most prior studies related to the FES model were quasi-dimensional simulations, with few found in multi-dimensional studies, and none under cold start conditions or stratified charges. This paper describes how the model was implemented into multidimensional simulations in CONVERGE CFD, and what the formulas are in the four sequential stages of combustion in SI engines. The capabilities of the FES model for simulating the cold start cases, under the conditions of the dramatically changing engine speed and mixture stratification in a complex engine geometry, are presented in this study. The FES model was able to not only simulate the steady-state cases with constant engine speed, but also predict the in-cylinder pressure traces in all four cylinders for the very first firing cycle with transient engine speed, and gave good agreement with the experimental measurements under these extremely transient conditions. The uncertain maximum fractal dimension was chosen as 2.37 in this research, and a simple linear correlation with engine speed was used to obtain the coefficient used in calculating the kernel formation time which controls the so-called combustion or ignition delay. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To enable risk informed decisions in the simulation-based design and development of novel combustors, uncertainties in the simulation results must be considered. However, due to the high computational costs for their quantification, these uncertainties are commonly not taken into account. Therefore, this work aims at applying an efficient methodology for uncertainty quantification based on Polynomial Chaos Expansion to a semi-technical spray burner reflecting characteristics typically found in modern aeroengine combustors. This requires accurate treatment of the multicomponent liquid fuel, a combustion model relying on finite rate chemistry and a scale resolving hybrid turbulence model to account for highly unsteady flow features and combustion. To overcome the need for costly experimental data for the spray boundary conditions, an algebraic primary breakup model is utilized. The resulting reduction in a priori information is compensated through probabilistic modeling and uncertainty quantification. Due to their importance in the design process, temperature distribution in the gas phase as well as the flame position are considered as the primary quantities of interest. For these quantities of interest, moderate uncertainties are found in the probabilistic simulation results. Further, the predictive capability of the simulation model under uncertainties is quantitively assessed by defining accurary metrics for the gas phase temperature prediction. The study further reveals that the imposed input uncertainties affect quantities of interest in both the dispersed and the gas phase through phase coupling effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hydrogen is used as vortex working medium, a new structure of vortex cold-wall combustion chamber was adopted. Numerical investigation was performed to analyze the turbulent flow under different spark starting times, 2 ms (case 1), 3 ms (case 2), 4 ms (case 3) and 5 ms (case 4). The result shows that in the cold state, a process of disturbance growth and double vortex structure formation is emerged. Except for case 1, the other three cases can successfully ignite the gas mixture in the combustion chamber, the larger the spark ignition time, the greater the probability of successful ignition, the shorter the ignition delay time, and the bigger the pressure peak. For these cases with successful ignition, the flame is mainly concentrated in the inner vortex area, the temperature variation is basically similar, but specie OH shows different variation trend. Considering the probability of successful ignition, ignition delay time and combustion stability, the spark is suitable to start at 3 ms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ignition capability is a critical design constraint for aeronautical gas turbines. However the current trend toward overall lean burn is detrimental to the engine ignition and relight and the ignition system must be adapted to ensure a fast and reliable light-round in all circumstances. As ignition is a stochastic phenomenon, the optimization of an ignition system requires to build ignition probability maps, which is difficult and costly with either experiment or numerical simulation as both require many tests. This work proposes a model to predict the ignition probability map, knowing only flow statistics in non-reacting conditions, i.e., with only one test. The originality of the model is to construct statistics of the flame kernel trajectory, which are then combined with local flow indicators to evaluate the ignition probability at the considered sparking location. Application to a swirled burner operated in premixed, non-premixed and spray combustion modes illustrates the model concepts and demonstrates its ability to recover the experimental ignition map with good accuracy.

Ignition capability is a critical design constraint for aeronautical gas turbines. However the current trend toward overall lean burn is detrimental to the engine ignition and relight and the ignition system must be adapted to ensure a fast and reliable light-round in all circumstances. As ignition is a stochastic phenomenon, the optimization of an ignition system requires to build ignition probability maps, which is difficult and costly with either experiment or numerical simulation as both require many tests. This work proposes a model to predict the ignition probability map, knowing only flow statistics in non-reacting conditions, i.e., with only one test. The originality of the model is to construct statistics of the flame kernel trajectory, which are then combined with local flow indicators to evaluate the ignition probability at the considered sparking location. Application to a swirled burner operated in premixed, non-premixed and spray combustion modes illustrates the model concepts and demonstrates its ability to recover the experimental ignition map with good accuracy.

A technique alternative to the direct numerical simulation of turbulent combustion of gas mixtures is proposed. It is based on the solution of the three-dimensional transport equations for species concentrations and the energy conservation equation in the “synthetic” field of constant-pressure homogeneous, isotropic and statistically stationary (forced) turbulence using the detailed reaction mechanism. The synthetic turbulence with given spatial and temporal correlation functions is generated using the Monte Carlo method, assuming that the components of the vector of fluctuation velocity obey the normal Gaussian distribution. The technique is applied to the problem of turbulent combustion of fuel-lean and stoichiometric mixtures of hydrogen and methane with air at a turbulence intensity up to 10 m/s. The calculated turbulent flame propagation velocities agree satisfactorily with the values measured in the fan-stirred bomb. The predicted volume fractions of active reaction centers H, O, and OH in a turbulent flame are shown to be less than in a laminar flame up to an order of magnitude, which also agrees with the experiment. In general, calculations indicate that the “wrinkled flame” model is applicable to fuel-lean and stoichiometric mixtures of hydrogen and methane with air at turbulence intensities up to 10 m/s

A new approach for modal decomposition through re-interpretation of unsteady dynamics, termed time-axis clustering, is developed in this work and is demonstrated on an experimental turbulent reacting flow dataset consisting of simultaneously measured planar OH-PLIF and PIV fields in a model combustor. The method executes a K-Means clustering algorithm on an alternative representation of the input snapshot dataset: the dataset is interpreted here as a collection of one-dimensional time series, where each time series represents the time evolution of some flow quantity of interest (QoI) at a fixed point in physical space (i.e. pixel locations). The clustering algorithm in the modal decomposition context produces (a) spatial modes (called time-axis modes) that identify localized regions of dynamical similarity in physical space and (b) temporal coefficients that represent average trajectories of the flow QoI conditioned on the regions in physical space identified by the corresponding spatial mode. Due to the non-overlapping nature of K-Means clusters, visualization of the modes provides a unique pathway for flow feature extraction based on dynamical similarity. Ultimately, this work shows how time-axis clustering provides a promising avenue for domain-localized data-based modelling of complex fluid flows. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Due to the composition-dependent stiffness of chemistry, simulations of reactive turbulent flows may present computational load imbalance among parallel processes when spatial decomposition is used for parallelisation, causing high CPU idle time and waste of computational resources. To increase computational efficiency, a dynamic load balancing (DLB) model is proposed to redistribute computational load among computing cores. The DLB model exploits a decomposition in the mixture fraction space with two dynamic adjusting decomposition strategies to realise load redistribution. The DLB model is suitable for the integration of chemistry on stochastic particles in hybrid Eulerian/Lagrangian turbulent combustion models in which the Eulerian field is conventionally decomposed statically in physical space in a way that balances the computational load for the solution of the Navier-Stokes equation but which does not generally lead to balanced load for the computation of the composition fields. Here it is tested using an OpenFOAM-based platform, mmcFoam, which is a comprehensive object-orientated C++ library for stochastic turbulent combustion modelling. Apart from direct integration (DI) for chemistry, the DLB model is also coupled with dynamic adaptive chemistry (DAC) and in situ adaptive tabulation (ISAT), which allows for extra speedup. The performance of the coupled models is validated and assessed for two laboratory flame conditions that exhibit different levels of computational load imbalance. Overall, the DLB model effectively balances the computational load distribution and increases the effective usage of computing power, shortening the simulation wall time required. Moreover, a strong scaling test is carried out using up to 512 cores. Although all approaches have sub-ideal scalability, the scalability of each with DLB is significantly better than without DLB. While DLB-ISAT has relatively poor scalability compared to the DI- and DAC-based methods, DLB-ISAT still ranks the fastest among the algorithms in all scaling trials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ability to derive temporal and spatial scales of "instantaneous" local temperature variations in a turbulent flame by means of coherent anti-Stokes Raman scattering (CARS) spectroscopy is demonstrated, for the first time to our knowledge. The measurements employed two CARS spectrometers with synchronized nanosecond pulse-repetitive lasers. The system was enabling to record, with a high temporal resolution of about 10 ns, series of single laser shot CARS spectra of N2 molecules from two spatially overlapped or displaced probe volumes as small as 0.03 × 0.03 × 2 mm3. The spectra were being recorded at a variable delay between two sequential shots, following each other in pairs at a repetition rate of 10 Hz. The series of 500 coupled measurements, at the delays in the range 1 μs–10 ms and the displacements up to 2.5 mm, have been performed in a few points of an open premixed methane–air flame of a laboratory burner with the time-averaged temperatures in the range 1200–1800 K. From the spectra, "instantaneous" temperatures, at the given delay and probe volume distance, have been derived. This allowed the auto-correlation coefficients of temperature fluctuations versus the delay and the displacement to be calculated. These dependences enabled to evaluate temperature correlation times and lengths under various mixture flow rates and equivalence ratios. Graphical Abstract This is a visual representation of the abstract. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The simultaneous effect of the swirl number (SN) and equivalence ratio on NO and soot emissions in turbulent methane–air combustion was numerically investigated. The realizable k-ε model has been applied for modeling turbulence and eddy dissipation (ED) and probability density function (PDF) models were adopted for chemical reaction. The general gradient diffusion hypothesis (GGDH), high order algebraic model (HOGGDH), and simple eddy diffusivity model have been applied for modeling the turbulent heat flux (THF) vector. The Brooke–Moss model has been employed to predict the soot particle quantities. Comparing the results of the different numerical models (PDF and EDM with algebraic THF) with available experimental data indicated that employing the second-order models significantly leads to the modification of predicting temperature distribution in EDM. However, due to the effect of the PDF model on soot modeling, the PDF model provides more accurate results. The numerical simulations have been performed for various SNs (SN = 0–1.33) and equivalence ratios (0.125–0.75). In all of equivalence ratios the flame temperature and pollutants emission (NO and soot) were strongly affected by the SN. Also, the SN has different effects on NO and soot emission. Finally, for each of NO and soot emission, a correlation relative to effective combustion factors such as SN and equivalence ratio was presented. It is found that by increasing the equivalence ratio, the NO emission increases with a power of 2.3, and soot emission decreases with a power of 8.7. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Partially premixed combustion is characterized by mixture fraction inhomogeneity upstream of the reaction zone and occurs in many applied combustion systems. The temporal and spatial fluctuations of the mixture fraction have tremendous impact on the combustion characteristics, emission formation, and flame stability. In this study, turbulent partially premixed flames are experimentally studied in a slot burner configuration. The local temperature and gas composition is determined by means of one-dimensional, simultaneous detection of Rayleigh and Raman scattering. The statistics of the mixture fraction are utilized to characterize the impact of the Reynolds number, the global equivalence ratio, the progress of mixing within the flame, as well as the mixing length on the mixing field. Furthermore, these effects are evaluated by means of a regime diagram for partially premixed flames. In this study, it is shown that the increase of the mixing length results in a significantly more stable flame. The impact of the Reynolds number on flame stability is found to be minor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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A premixed H 2 /air flame impinging onto a flat surface in statistically stationary state is studied for both reactive and inert wall cases to gain insights into the effects of the heterogeneous surface reactions. Direct numerical simulation (DNS) results with detailed gas-phase chemistry and surface adsorption and desorption mechanisms indicate differences in the flame front topology and near-wall flame dynamics between these two cases. In the reactive surface case, gas-phase free radicals are inclined to be adsorbed with much reduced near-wall concentration. Consequently, the gas-phase heat release rate (HRR) close to the wall decreases as well because of the low availability of free radicals. However, extra heat released from the reactive surface partially compensates for such difference. Moreover, wall reactions will intensify the turbulent fluctuations of the wall temperature and wall heat flux, while for these two cases the mean temperature profile along the flame propagating direction remains similar. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The formation of nitric oxide (NO) and nitrous oxide (N 2 O) in turbulent NH 3 /H 2 /N 2 -air premixed flames is investigated utilizing three-dimensional Direct Numerical Simulation (DNS) with detailed chemical kinetics in order to gain insight on the role of equivalence ratio and pressure. To this end, results from five large-scale DNS in temporal jet and shear layer configurations with equivalence ratios of 0.45, 0.9 and 1.1 (at 1 bar) and pressures of 1 and 10 bar (at an equivalence ratio of 0.45) are presented. Statistics of the temporal evolution of global formation rates of NO and N 2 O are analyzed. Overall, an increase of NO production (compared to heat release) is observed, except for the lean high-pressure case, which sustains lower NO but increased N 2 O net production rates. Time-instants of peak NO and N 2 O are analyzed in more detail, including progress variable and curvature conditioned statistics that reveal the impact of local flame geometry on NO production pathways and key chemical reactions involving N 2 O. It is found that the production of NO generally displays a high dependence on the local flame geometry, while the formation of N 2 O is less sensitive to curvature, except at high pressure. These observations are discussed in light of differences in thermo-diffusive effects and the topologically-driven increased availability of certain key radicals, e.g., atomic hydrogen in the consumption of N 2 O. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper experimentally analyzes the simultaneous influence of combustion and large-scale vortex structures on the transfer of kinetic energy across scales around the laminar flame thickness δ L 0 in a turbulent premixed swirl flame and a non-reacting swirl flow. High-resolution tomographic particle image velocimetry and formaldehyde planar laser induced fluorescence measurements are used to obtain 3D velocity fields and estimates of the progress variable and density fields. The kinetic energy transfer across a filter scale of Δ = 1.5 δ L 0 was then quantified using physical space analysis. Coherent flow structures were identified using the swirling strength and proper orthogonal decomposition was used to identify the dominant periodic flow structure. While non-reacting regions of the flow show mean down-scale energy transfer (forward-scatter), mean back-scatter is observed internal to the flame. Importantly, the back-scatter magnitude in the flame increases in regions undergoing flame/vortex interaction. That is, the mean back-scatter magnitude at locations simultaneously inside the flame and a large-scale coherent vortex is higher than regions in the flame and not in a vortex, with the mean back-scatter magnitude increasing with the swirling strength. This increased back-scatter may be due to locally higher heat release rates in locations of flame/vortex interaction. Overall, the results demonstrate the importance of kinetic energy back-scatter at scales around the flame thickness and the complicated relationship between back-scatter and local flame/flow structure; these results should be considered when modeling turbulence in flames. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The simulation of turbulent flames fully resolving the smallest flow scales and the thinnest reaction zones goes along with specific requirements, which are discussed from dimensionless numbers useful to introduce the generic context in which direct numerical simulation (DNS) of turbulent flames is performed. Starting from this basis, the evolution of the DNS landscape over the past five years is reviewed. It is found that the flow geometries, the focus of the studies and the overall motivations for performing DNS have broadened, making DNS a standard tool in numerical turbulent combustion. Along these lines, the emerging DNS of laboratory burners for turbulent flame modeling development is discussed and illustrated from DNS imbedded in Large Eddy Simulation (LES) and flow resolved simulation of bluff-body flames. The literature shows that DNS generated databases constitute a fantastic playground for developing and testing a large spectrum of promising machine learning methods for the control and the optimisation of combustion systems, including novel numerical approaches based on the training of neural networks and which can be evaluated in DNS free from sub-model artefacts. The so-called quasi-DNS is also progressively entering the optimisation loop of combustion systems, with the application of techniques to downsize real combustion devices in order to perform fully resolved simulations of their complex geometries. An example of such study leading to the improvement of an incinerator efficiency is reported. Finally, numbers are given relative to the carbon footprint of the generation of DNS databases, motivating the crucial need for community building around database sharing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this short review is to present the progress made in wildland fire modelling during the last 50 years and the intellectual track followed by wildland fires models, from fully empirical models in the 60s, to semi-empirical ones in the 70s, to fully physical models at the end of the 90s. During the last period, the large diffusion of HPC methods substantially contributed to the development of multiphase formulations applied to wildland fire modelling. Many studies have particularly focused on the effects of various parameters (vegetation, topography, atmosphere) affecting the behaviour of a fire front propagating through a forest fuel layer.

Global warming caused by the use of fossil fuels is a common concern of the world today. It is of practical importance to conduct in-depth fundamental research and optimal design for modern engine combustors through high-fidelity computational fluid dynamics (CFD), so as to achieve energy conservation and emission reduction. However, complex hydrocarbon chemistry, an indispensable component for predictive modeling, is computationally demanding. Its application in simulation-based design optimization, although desirable, is quite limited. To address this challenge, we propose a methodology for representing complex chemistry with artificial neural networks (ANNs), which are trained with a comprehensive sample dataset generated by the Latin hypercube sampling (LHS) method. With a given chemical kinetic mechanism, the thermochemical sample data is able to cover the whole accessible pressure/temperature/species space in various turbulent flames. The ANN-based model consists of two different layers: the self-organizing map (SOM) and the back-propagation neural network (BPNN). The methodology is demonstrated to represent a 30-species methane chemical mechanism. The obtained ANN model is applied to simulate both a non-premixed turbulent flame (DLR_A) and a partially premixed turbulent flame (Flame D) to validate its applicability for different flames. Results show that the ANN-based chemical kinetics can reduce the computational cost by about two orders of magnitude without loss of accuracy. The proposed methodology can successfully construct an ANN-based chemical mechanism with significant efficiency gain and a broad scope of applicability, and thus holds a great potential for complex hydrocarbon fuels.

The present work compares the respective advantages and disadvantages of compressible and incompressible computational fluid dynamics (CFD) formulations when used for the estimation of the acoustic flame response. The flame transfer function of a turbulent premixed swirl-stabilized burner is determined by applying system identification (SI) to time series data extracted from large eddy simulation (LES). By analyzing the quality of the results, the present study shows that incompressible simulations exhibit several advantages over their compressible counterpart with equal prediction of the flame dynamics. On the one hand, the forcing signals can be designed in such a way that desired statistical properties can be enhanced, while maintaining optimal values in the amplitude. On the other hand, computational costs are reduced and the implementation is fundamentally simpler due to the absence of acoustic wave propagation and corresponding resonances in the flame response or even self-excited acoustic oscillations. Such an increase in efficiency makes the incompressible CFD/SI modeling approach very appealing for the study of a wide variety of systems that rely on premixed combustion. In conclusion, the present study reveals that both methodologies predict the same flame dynamics, which confirms that incompressible simulation can be used for thermoacoustic analyses of acoustically compact velocity-sensitive flames. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A technique alternative to the direct numerical simulation of turbulent combustion of gas mixtures is proposed. It is based on the solution of the three-dimensional transport equations for species concentrations and the energy conservation equation in the "synthetic" field of constant-pressure homogeneous, isotropic and statistically stationary (forced) turbulence using the detailed reaction mechanism. The synthetic turbulence with given spatial and temporal correlation functions is generated using the Monte Carlo method, assuming that the components of the vector of fluctuation velocity obey the normal Gaussian distribution. The technique is applied to the problem of turbulent combustion of fuel-lean and stoichiometric mixtures of hydrogen and methane with air at a turbulence intensity up to 10 m/s. The calculated turbulent flame propagation velocities agree satisfactorily with the values measured in the fan-stirred bomb. The predicted volume fractions of active reaction centers H, O, and OH in a turbulent flame are shown to be less than in a laminar flame up to an order of magnitude, which also agrees with the experiment. In general, calculations indicate that the "wrinkled flame" model is applicable to fuel-lean and stoichiometric mixtures of hydrogen and methane with air at turbulence intensities up to 10 m/s [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Uniform Conditional State (UCS) and the Multidimensional Flamelet Manifold (MFM) models are methods for the tabulation of chemistry in simulations of turbulent flames. The high-dimensionality of the tables these models generate and many possible combinations of the values for the input variables necessitate the allocation of a considerable size of memory during CFD calculations. This issue becomes even more problematic when adding more conditioning variables to the model. In this study, two Artificial Intelligence (AI)-based approaches referred to as Decision Tree (DT) and Artificial Neural Network (ANN) are developed and tested to provide in situ chemistry representation. The goal is to predict four parameters (outputs) accurately with low memory demand and computational cost. The trained AI models are then employed for simulation of a turbulent premixed flame. Comparison of the results from the AI-based approaches to those from the conventional UCS model shows acceptable agreement. The memory and CPU requirements from the different approaches are compared. It is found that the ANN model reduces the size of the chemistry table by around 92%. Conversely, the DT-based model reduces the size of the chemistry model by only 40%. The CPU time for using the DT model during the CFD calculations was around 10% shorter than the conventional approach while it was 8% higher for the ANN model. It was concluded that, based on the particular applications, different AI-based methods can facilitate an efficient representation of the chemistry manifold. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A new computational methodology, termed 'PeleLM-FDF' is developed and utilised for high fidelity large eddy simulation (LES) of complex turbulent combustion systems. This methodology is constructed via a hybrid scheme combining the Eulerian PeleLM base flow solver with the Lagrangian Monte Carlo simulator of the filtered density function (FDF) for the subgrid scale reactive scalars. The resulting methodology is capable of simulating some of the most intricate physics of complex turbulence-combustion interactions. This is demonstrated by LES of a non-premixed CO/H 2 temporally evolving jet flame. The chemistry is modelled via a skeletal kinetics model, and the results are appraised via a posteriori comparisons against direct numerical simulation (DNS) data of the same flame. Excellent agreements are observed for the time evolution of various statistics of the thermo-chemical quantities, including the manifolds of the multi-scalar mixing. The new methodology is capable of capturing the complex phenomena of flame-extinction and re-ignition at a 1/512 of the computational cost of the DNS. The high fidelity and the computational affordability of the new PeleLM-FDF solver warrants its consideration for LES of practical turbulent combustion systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a novel numerical approach for assessing the turbulent limits of hydrogen combustion. In the framework of this approach, the premixed combustion is studied numerically in the externally generated turbulent field with defined parameters. Two-dimensional calculations are carried out for hydrogen–air mixtures of different compositions, and all the possible modes of near-limit combustion are reproduced. Among these modes are: combustion in the form of spatially separated individual kernels and combustion in the form of kernels with subsequent quenching. The critical conditions between the mentioned two modes correspond to the turbulent limits of hydrogen combustion, which are necessary for the evaluation of the hazardous risks related to hydrogen explosions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A new rotational flamelet model with inward swirling flow through a stretched vortex tube is developed for sub-grid modelling to be coupled with the resolved flow for turbulent combustion. The model has critical new features compared to existing models. (i) Non-premixed flames, premixed flames, or multi-branched flame structures are determined rather than prescribed. (ii) The effects of vorticity and the related centrifugal acceleration are determined. (iii) The strain rates and vorticity applied at the sub-grid level can be directly determined from the resolved-scale strain rates and vorticity without a contrived progress variable. (iv) The flamelet model is three-dimensional. (v) The effect of variable density is addressed. (vi) The inward swirl is created by vorticity combined with two compressive normal strain components; this feature distinguishes the model from counterflow flamelet models. Solutions to the multicomponent Navier–Stokes equations governing the flamelet model are obtained. By coordinate transformation, a similar solution is found for the model, through a system of ordinary differential equations. Vorticity creates a centrifugal force on the sub-grid counterflow that modifies the molecular transport rates, burning rates, and flammability limits. Sample computations of the inward swirling rotational flamelet model without coupling to the resolved flow are presented to demonstrate the importance of the new features. Premixed, nonpremixed, and multi-branched flame structures are examined. Parameter surveys are made with rate of normal strain, vorticity, Damköhler number, and Prandtl number. The centrifugal effect has interesting consequences when combined with the variable-density field. Flow direction can reverse; burning rates can be modified; flammability limits can be extended. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This work aims to provide support for the design of reliable DNSs for statistically planar flames. Improved simulation design strategies are developed. Therefore, design criteria for the simulative domain are discussed. The gained mathematical relations for all of the relevant physical quantities were channelled into a deterministic calculation strategy for mesh features. To choose design parameter values within the mathematical formulations, guidelines were formulated. For less controllable variables, namely the viscosity and Prandtl number, a measurement technique was developed. A new determination strategy to determine characteristic points within the flame front was conducted. In order to present and compare cases with different Prandtl numbers, normalisation of the x-axis of the regime diagram was suggested. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]