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Article
Publication date: 6 January 2012

Rob Bastiaans and A.W. Vreman

The present paper is about numerical simulations of one‐ and two‐dimensional lean hydrogen combustion at an equivalence ratio of 0.7. The initial flat two‐dimensional flames show…

Abstract

Purpose

The present paper is about numerical simulations of one‐ and two‐dimensional lean hydrogen combustion at an equivalence ratio of 0.7. The initial flat two‐dimensional flames show unstable behavior. The instabilities generate flame wrinkling and flame induced turbulence. As a result, cusp‐like structures arise that both merge and break up in new cusps. Therefore, physically, the laminar burning velocity associated to an adiabatic flat flame does not exist. Instead, a statistical effective burning velocity and flame width develop in which the cusp like structures and their effects are included. The purpose of this paper is to describe the phenomena with a reduced chemical approach.

Design/methodology/approach

Simulations are performed with detailed kinetics, to study the main properties and dynamics of the wrinkling. An attempt is made to reduce the chemistry employing flamelet generated manifolds to make a step towards large‐scale, low cost simulations, which are still able to capture the physics. Here the manifold was built of premixed flames with variations of stretch, unburnt temperature and equivalence ratio. A priori correlations are presented, together with results from actual reduced chemistry simulations.

Findings

It was found that with introduction of variation of equivalence ratio into the manifold the main physical phenomena are captured. Moreover, an effective inclusion of differential diffusion was succesfully tested and applied. Results of effective burning velocities and flame widths are presented.

Originality/value

The paper shows the potential of performing accurate simulations using the chemical reduction technique of flamelet generated manifolds for pure lean hydrogen flames.

Details

International Journal of Numerical Methods for Heat & Fluid Flow, vol. 22 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0961-5539

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 8 November 2021

Ender Hepkaya and Nuri Yucel

This study aims to methodologically investigate heat transfer effects on reacting flow inside a liquid-fueled, swirl-stabilized burner. Furthermore, particular attention is paid…

Abstract

Purpose

This study aims to methodologically investigate heat transfer effects on reacting flow inside a liquid-fueled, swirl-stabilized burner. Furthermore, particular attention is paid to turbulence modeling and the results of Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes and large eddy simulation approaches are compared in terms of velocity field and flame temperature.

Design/methodology/approach

Simulations consist liquid fuel distribution using Eulerian–Lagrangian approach. Flamelet-Generated Manifold combustion model, which is a mixture fraction-progress variable formulation, is used to obtain reacting flow field. Discrete ordinates method is also added for modeling radiation heat transfer effect inside the burner. As a parametric study, different thermal boundary conditions namely: adiabatic wall, constant temperature and heat transfer coefficient are applied. Because of the fact that the burner is designed for operating with different materials, the effects of burner material on heat transfer and combustion processes are investigated. Additionally, material temperatures have been calculated using 1 D method. Finally, soot particles, which are source of luminous radiation in gas turbine combustors, are calculated using Moss-Brookes model.

Findings

The results show that the flow behavior is obviously different in recirculation region for both turbulence modeling approach, and this difference causes change on flame temperature distribution, particularly in the outer recirculation zone and region close to swirler. In thermal assessment of the burner, it is predicted that material of the burner walls and the applied thermal boundary conditions have significant influence on flame temperature, wall temperature and flow field. The radiation heat transfer also makes a strong impact on combustion inside the burner; however, luminous radiation arising from soot particles is negligible for the current case.

Originality/value

These types of burners are widely used in research of gas turbine combustion, and it can be seen that the heat transfer effects are generally neglected or oversimplified in the literature. This parametric study provides a basic understanding and methodology of the heat transfer effects on combustion to the researchers.

Details

Aircraft Engineering and Aerospace Technology, vol. 94 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1748-8842

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 6 February 2017

Alain Fossi and Alain DeChamplain

Safety improvement and pollutant reduction in many practical combustion systems and especially in aero-gas turbine engines require an adequate understanding of flame ignition and…

Abstract

Purpose

Safety improvement and pollutant reduction in many practical combustion systems and especially in aero-gas turbine engines require an adequate understanding of flame ignition and stabilization mechanisms. Improved software and hardware have opened up greater possibilities for translating basic knowledge and the results of experiments into better designs. The present study deals with the large eddy simulation (LES) of an ignition sequence in a conical shaped bluff-body stabilized burner involving a turbulent non-premixed flame. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of spark location on ignition success. Particular attention is paid to the ease of handling of the numerical tool, the computational cost and the accuracy of the results.

Design/methodology/approach

The discrete particle ignition kernel (DPIK) model is used to capture the ignition kernel dynamics in its early stage of growth after the breakdown period. The ignition model is coupled with two combustion models based on the mixture fraction-progress variable formulation. An infinitely fast chemistry assumption is first done, and the turbulent fluctuations of the progress variable are captured with a bimodal probability density function (PDF) in the line of the Bray–Moss–Libby (BML) model. Thereafter, a finite rate chemistry assumption is considered through the flamelet-generated manifold (FGM) method. In these two assumptions, the classical beta-PDF is used to model the temporal fluctuations of the mixture fraction in the turbulent flow. To model subgrid scale stresses and residual scalars fluxes, the wall-adapting local eddy (WALE) and the eddy diffusivity models are, respectively, used under the low-Mach number assumption.

Findings

Numerical results of velocity and mixing fields, as well as the ignition sequences, are validated through a comparison with their experimental counterparts. It is found that by coupling the DPIK model with each of the two combustion models implemented in a LES-based solver, the ignition event is reasonably predicted with further improvements provided by the finite rate chemistry assumption. Finally, the spark locations most likely to lead to a complete ignition of the burner are found to be around the shear layer delimiting the central recirculation zone, owing to the presence of a mixture within flammability limits.

Research limitations/implications

Some discrepancies are found in the radial profiles of the radial velocity and consequently in those of the mixture fraction, owing to a mismatch of the radial velocity at the inlet section of the computational domain. Also, unlike FGM methods, the BML model predicts the overall ignition earlier than suggested by the experiment; this may be related to the overestimation of the reaction rate, especially in the zones such as flame holder wakes which feature high strain rate due to fuel-air mixing.

Practical implications

This work is adding a contribution for ignition modeling, which is a crucial issue in various combustion systems and especially in aircraft engines. The exclusive use of a commercial computational fluid dynamics (CFD) code widely used by combustion system manufacturers allows a direct application of this simulation approach to other configurations while keeping computing costs at an affordable level.

Originality/value

This study provides a robust and simple way to address some ignition issues in various spark ignition-based engines, namely, the optimization of engines ignition with affordable computational costs. Based on the promising results obtained in the current work, it would be relevant to extend this simulation approach to spray combustion that is required for aircraft engines because of storage volume constraints. From this standpoint, the simulation approach formulated in the present work is useful to engineers interested in optimizing the engines ignition at the design stage.

Details

International Journal of Numerical Methods for Heat & Fluid Flow, vol. 27 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0961-5539

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 6 November 2020

Alain Fossi, Alain DeChamplain, Benjamin Akih-Kumgeh and Jeffrey Bergthorson

This study aims to deal with the large eddy simulation (LES) of an ignition sequence and the resulting steady combustion in a swirl-stabilized liquid-fueled combustor. Particular…

Abstract

Purpose

This study aims to deal with the large eddy simulation (LES) of an ignition sequence and the resulting steady combustion in a swirl-stabilized liquid-fueled combustor. Particular attention is paid to the ease of handling the numerical tool, the accuracy of the results and the reasonable computational cost involved. The primary aim of the study is to appraise the ability of the newly developed computational fluid dynamics (CFD) methodology to retrieve the spark-based flame kernel initiation, its propagation until the full ignition of the combustion chamber, the flame stabilization and the combustion processes governing the steady combustion regime.

Design/methodology/approach

The CFD model consists of an LES-based spray module coupled to a subgrid-scale ignition model to capture the flame kernel initiation and the early stage of the flame kernel growth, and a combustion model based on the mixture fraction-progress variable formulation in the line of the flamelet generated manifold (FGM) method to retrieve the subsequent flame propagation and combustion properties. The LES-spray module is based on an Eulerian-Lagrangian approach and includes a fully two-way coupling at each time step to account for the interactions between the liquid and the gaseous phases. The Wall-Adapting Local Eddy-viscosity (WALE) model is used for the flow field while the eddy diffusivity model is used for the scalar fluxes. The fuel is liquid kerosene, injected in the form of a polydisperse spray of droplets. The spray dynamics are tracked using the Lagrangian procedure, and the phase transition of droplets is calculated using a non-equilibrium evaporation model. The oxidation mechanism of the Jet A-1 surrogate is described through a reduced reaction mechanism derived from a detailed mechanism using a species sensitivity method.

Findings

By comparing the numerical results with a set of published data for a swirl-stabilized spray flame, the proposed CFD methodology is found capable of capturing the whole spark-based ignition sequence in a liquid-fueled combustion chamber and the main flame characteristics in the steady combustion regime with reasonable computing costs.

Research limitations/implications

The proposed CFD methodology simulates the whole ignition sequence, namely, the flame kernel initiation, its propagation to fully ignite the combustion chamber, and the global flame stabilization. Due to the lack of experimental ignition data on this liquid-fueled configuration, the ability of the proposed CFD methodology to accurately predict ignition timing was not quantitatively assessed. It would, therefore, be interesting to apply this CFD methodology to other configurations that have experimental ignition data, to quantitatively assess its ability to predict the ignition timing and the flame characteristics during the ignition sequence. Such further investigations will not only provide further validation of the proposed methodology but also will potentially identify its shortfalls for better improvement.

Practical implications

This CFD methodology is developed by customizing a commercial CFD code widely used in the industry. It is, therefore, directly applicable to practical configurations, and provides not only a relatively straightforward approach to predict an ignition sequence in liquid-fueled combustion chambers but also a robust way to predict the flame characteristics in the steady combustion regime as significant improvements are noticed on the prediction of slow species.

Originality/value

The incorporation of the subgrid ignition model paired with a combustion model based on tabulated chemistry allows reducing computational costs involved in the simulation of the ignition phase. The incorporation of the FGM-based tabulated chemistry provides a drastic reduction of computing resources with reasonable accuracy. The CFD methodology is developed using the platform of a commercial CFD code widely used in the industry for relatively straightforward applicability.

Details

International Journal of Numerical Methods for Heat & Fluid Flow, vol. 31 no. 6
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0961-5539

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 11 March 2020

Hamidreza Khodayari, Fathollah Ommi and Zoheir Saboohi

The purpose of this paper is to review the applications of the chemical reactor network (CRN) approach for modeling the combustion in gas turbine combustors and classify the CRN…

638

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to review the applications of the chemical reactor network (CRN) approach for modeling the combustion in gas turbine combustors and classify the CRN construction methods that have been frequently used by researchers.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper initiates with introducing the CRN approach as a practical tool for precisely predicting the species concentrations in the combustion process with lower computational costs. The structure of the CRN and its elements as the ideal reactors are reviewed in recent studies. Flow field modeling has been identified as the most important input for constructing the CRNs; thus, the flow field modeling methods have been extensively reviewed in previous studies. Network approach, component modeling approach and computational fluid dynamics (CFD), as the main flow field modeling methods, are investigated with a focus on the CRN applications. Then, the CRN construction approaches are reviewed and categorized based on extracting the flow field required data. Finally, the most used kinetics and CRN solvers are reviewed and reported in this paper.

Findings

It is concluded that the CRN approach can be a useful tool in the entire process of combustion chamber design. One-dimensional and quasi-dimensional methods of flow field modeling are used in the construction of the simple CRNs without detailed geometry data. This approach requires fewer requirements and is used in the initial combustor designing process. In recent years, using the CFD approach in the construction of CRNs has been increased. The flow field results of the CFD codes processed to create the homogeneous regions based on construction criteria. Over the past years, several practical algorithms have been proposed to automatically extract reactor networks from CFD results. These algorithms have been developed to identify homogeneous regions with a high resolution based on the splitting criteria.

Originality/value

This paper reviews the various flow modeling methods used in the construction of the CRNs, along with an overview of the studies carried out in this field. Also, the usual approaches for creating a CRN and the most significant achievements in this field are addressed in detail.

Details

Aircraft Engineering and Aerospace Technology, vol. 92 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1748-8842

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 16 July 2019

ChungHwei Su and ShiuanCheng Wang

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the variations in the neutral plane when a tall space with unsymmetrical openings is on fire. The neutral plane of the fire scene is an…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the variations in the neutral plane when a tall space with unsymmetrical openings is on fire. The neutral plane of the fire scene is an important index of a natural smoke exhaust system. The numerical simulation method and the Schlieren photography technique were used as analysis tools. The results of model experiments and numerical simulation were compared with each other to confirm the rationality of the conclusions. The results were to discuss the characteristics of various cases and showed that the neutral planes of the fire scene were not always horizontal.

Design/methodology/approach

The numerical simulation method and the Schlieren photography technique were used as analysis tools. The flow patterns of hot air in various cases were recorded using the flow visualization technique. In addition, the renowned simulation software, fire dynamics simulator (FDS), was used for case analysis. The Schlieren photography technique was used for 1/12.5 model experiments with six smokeless candles burned, and FDS was used for a numerical simulation. In terms of the case of unilateral vents, the exhaust efficiency was discussed when the exhaust vent and air inlet were located on the same side or different sides.

Findings

This study demonstrates that makeup air flowing in from the inlets and openings has a significant impact on the effectiveness of natural smoke exhaust systems. The results illustrated that the neutral planes were tilted in some cases. In some cases, the results showed that one side was the air inlet and the other side was the exhaust vent, even if the openings were at the same height in some cases. These phenomena have rarely been discovered or studied in the past. The exhaust efficiency was not always better when the vent was located in the rooftop.

Originality/value

This study analyzed the neutral plane of a fire scene using the common unsymmetrical opening spaces in the Taiwan region as an example. The phenomenon of non-horizontal neutral plane has rarely been studied in the past. The temperature of the discharged hot gas was low because of an efficient exhaust effect, which reduced the heat and smoke storage in the space. The results obtained by these two methods were consistent, and showed that the cases with the same opening area had different smoke extraction efficiencies, meaning the smoke extraction effect cannot be judged only by the opening areas.

Details

International Journal of Numerical Methods for Heat & Fluid Flow, vol. 29 no. 11
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0961-5539

Keywords

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