PDF Modelling of Turbulent Combustion

Abstract

The overall goal of the research was to advance capabilities for the computational modeling of turbulent combustion. The design of combustors in propulsion systems for space and aircraft applications remains a significant technical challenge, and computational modeling is used extensively in the design process. Significant progress was made in four areas. A storage/retrieval methodology for the efficient implementation of combustion chemistry was extended for use on parallel clusters. Based on the solution of a modeled transport equation for the joint probability density function, calculations were performed of lifted hydrogen flames in vitiated co-flows. These revealed that the stabilization mechanism was lateral mixing followed by autoignition; and that the flame lift-off height is extremely sensitive to the co- flow temperature. Similar calculations were performed for methane/air piloted jet flames using mechanisms with up to 53 chemical species. These computations demonstrated the level of description of the chemistry needed for the accurate calculation of the finite-rate chemical effects in these flames. A new dimension-reduction methodology was developed and demonstrated which reduces the computational cost of incorporating realistic combustion chemistry. In addition, there were collaborations with the University of Pittsburgh and Clemson University on large-eddy simulations of turbulent combustion using probability density function methods.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Aug 01, 2005
Accession Number
ADA452252

Entities

People

  • Stephen B. Pope

Organizations

  • Sibley School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Air Platforms
  • Human Systems
  • Materials and Manufacturing Processes

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Chemical Kinetics
  • Chemical Reactions
  • Chemistry
  • Combustion
  • Combustion Products
  • Combustors
  • Computational Fluid Dynamics
  • Differential Equations
  • Dimensionality Reduction
  • Equations
  • Fluid Dynamics
  • Ignition Lag
  • Jet Flames
  • Large Eddy Simulation
  • Propulsion Systems
  • Simulations
  • Turbulent Mixing

Fields of Study

  • Physics

Readers

  • Combustion science or combustion engineering.
  • Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD)

Technology Areas

  • Space
  • Space - Hall-Effect Thruster