Investigation of Extinction and Reignition Events Using the Flamelet Generated Manifold Model

Abstract

Simulations for the Cambridge swirl bluff-body spray burner are performed near blow-out conditions. A hybrid stress blended eddy simulation (SBES) model is utilized for sub-grid turbulence closure. SBES blends the RANS-SST model at the boundary layer with large eddy simulation dynamic Smagorinsky model outside the boundary layer. The injected N-heptane spray droplets are tracked using a typical Eulerian-Lagrangian approach. Heat transfer coupling between the bluff-body walls and the near-walls fluid is accounted for by coupling the solid and fluid energy equations at the bluff-body surface. Mixing and chemistry are modeled using the Flamelet Generated Manifold (FGM) model. The study investigates how successful the FGM model is in predicting finite rate effects like local extinction and flame lift-off height. To this end, two near blow-out spray flames, the H1S1 (75% to blow-out) and H1S2 (88% to blow-out) are simulated. Good results are shown matching the spray Sauter mean diameter (SMD) and axial velocity mean and rms experimental data. The results also show that the FGM model captured reasonably well the flame structure and lift-off height as well as the spray pattern. Overall the spray droplets mean D32 and mean axial velocity were under-predicted, while the rms distribution matched reasonably well for the H1S1 flame. The mean flame brush lift-off height is estimated based on the statistically stationary mean flame brush and is estimated to be around 6 mm from the bluff-body base. Instantaneous local flame extinction is observed. The H1S2 flame, however, showed similar but slightly better match with the measurements for the mean spray data compared to the H1S1 flame, with slight under-prediction for D32 at Z = 10 mm and Z = 20 mm. Future work will investigate the sensitivity of the simulation to the spray boundary conditions and grid resolution.