Flow Physics of a Bluff-Body Swirl Stabilized Flame and their Prediction by Means of a Joint Eulerian Stochastic Field and Tabulated Chemistry Approach

Abstract

In the frame of this work a transported joint scalar probability density function (PDF) method is combined with the flamelet generated manifolds (FGM) tabulated chemistry approach for large eddy simulation (LES) modeling of a three-dimensional turbulent premixed swirl burner. This strategy accounts for the turbulence-chemistry interaction at reasonable computational costs. At the same time, it allows the usage of detailed chemistry mechanisms for the creation of the chemical database. The simulation results obtained are comparatively assessed along with complementary measurements. Furthermore, transient and time-averaged data are used to provide insight into the flow physics of the bluff-body swirl stabilized flame considered. The sensitivity of the results to different modeling approaches regarding the predicted flame shape and its dynamics is also investigated, where the implemented approach is compared with the well-established artificially thickened flame (ATF) combustion model. Consequently, the investigation conducted in this work aims to provide a complete picture on the ability of the proposed combustion model to reproduce the flow conditions within complex bluff-body swirl stabilized flames.