A Computationally Efficient Implementation of Tabulated Combustion Chemistry based on Polynomials and Automatic Source Code Generation

Abstract

The simulation of turbulent combustion is a multiphysics and multiscale problem, in which two different domains - fluid mechanics and chemistry - have to be coupled. One solution is a CFD-based simulation framework that performs lookups on tabulated chemistry using flamelets. The tables can become very large when the resolution is increased and modelling parameters and solution values are added. This makes dynamic memory management and its runtime requirements a crucial issue in these simulations. A novel approach for the efficient memory management of tabulated chemistry at reduced computational cost is developed in this study. The original interpolation-focused database is converted into a polynomial description, which is stored in a shared library as a set of functions. This step enables automatic compiler optimization techniques to achieve minimal data movement and the best use of modern computer architecture. The performance and properties of the method are evaluated in a generic test case and a fully coupled flame simulation.