An Assessment of Flamelet Generated Manifold Combustion Model for Predicting Combustor Performance

Abstract

In Rich-Quench-Lean design of aircraft gas turbine combustors, primary zone mixing is critical for emissions, flame shape, and heat transfer. From a modeling perspective, the primary zone flow prediction is largely impacted by the fidelity of the mixing model and the type of combustion model used. The assumption that fuel spray burns in a diffusion flame or in a partially premixed flame has an impact on the combustor’s performance parameters. In this paper, we compare the non-premixed steady diffusion flamelet model with the partially premixed flamelet generated manifold model for several Honeywell combustors using the commercial CFD code ANSYS FLUENT. The validations are made in the context of Large Eddy Simulation and the time averaged CFD results are compared with rig data highlighting the impact of the combustion models on combustor performance. Results show that the flamelet generated manifold combustion model provides a more realistic lifted flame shape that is not in contact with the fuel nozzle.