Evaluation of flamelet/progress variable model for laminar pulverized coal combustion

Abstract

In the present work, the flamelet/progress variable (FPV) approach based on two mixture fractions is formulated for pulverized coal combustion and then evaluated in laminar counterflow coal flames under different operating conditions through both a priori and a posteriori analyses. Two mixture fractions, Zvol and Zchar, are defined to characterize the mixing between the oxidizer and the volatile matter/char reaction products. A coordinate transformation is conducted to map the flamelet solutions from a unit triangle space (Zvol, Zchar) to a unit square space (Z, X) so that a more stable solution can be achieved. To consider the heat transfers between the coal particle phase and the gas phase, the total enthalpy is introduced as an additional manifold. As a result, the thermo-chemical quantities are parameterized as a function of the mixture fraction Z, the mixing parameter X, the normalized total enthalpy Hnorm, and the reaction progress variable YPV. The validity of the flamelet chemtable and the selected trajectory variables is first evaluated in a priori tests by comparing the tabulated quantities with the results obtained from numerical simulations with detailed chemistry. The comparisons show that the major species mass fractions can be predicted by the FPV approach in all combustion regions for all operating conditions, while the CO and H2 mass fractions are over-predicted in the premixed flame reaction zone. The a posteriori study shows that overall good agreement between the FPV results and those obtained from detailed chemistry simulations can be achieved, although the coal particle ignition is predicted to be slightly earlier. Overall, the validity of the FPV approach for laminar pulverized coal combustion is confirmed and its performance in turbulent pulverized coal combustion will be tested in future work.