A priori direct numerical simulation assessment of MILD combustion modelling in the context of large eddy simulation

Abstract

A priori Direct Numerical Simulation (DNS) assessment of the closures for the filtered reaction rate and the Favre-filtered scalar dissipation rate (SDR) for large eddy simulations (LES) of homogenous and stratified mixture MILD combustion has been performed. It has been found that the probability density function of the reaction progress variable can be adequately predicted using the beta function for both homogenous and stratified mixture MILD combustion. It has also been found that a scalar dissipation rate closure characteristic of passive scalar mixing may not be suitable for homogenous and stratified mixture MILD combustion. The predictions of different filtered reaction rate closures have been assessed with respect to DNS data in this study. The Eddy Dissipation Concept (EDC), Eddy-Break Up (EBU) model, and SDR-based reaction rate closures for Reynolds Averaged Navier-Stokes simulations have been extended for MILD combustion in the context of LES. The SDR-based reaction rate closure captures the qualitative behaviour but overpredicts the filtered reaction rate for both homogenous and stratified mixture MILD combustion. The EBU-based reaction rate and flame surface density (FSD) closures did not capture the qualitative behaviour of the filtered reaction rate for both homogenous and stratified mixture MILD combustion. By contrast, the EDC model with bridging functions, which ensures asymptotic behaviour, shows the potential to provide reasonable predictions of the filtered reaction rate for a wide range of filter widths in the cases investigated here.