Numerical simulations of industrial-scale combustion chamber - LES versus RANS

Abstract

In this work we focus on the simulation of the process of biomass syngas combustion in the industrial combustion chamber directly linked with gasification chamber, where this gas is continuously producing from the biomass.Conflicting demands from the engineers to have rapid results and hints how to ensure the best conditions for combustion of this particular fuel and to lower the emission of pollutants, with simultaneously deep view inside the process and its stability motivates us to use both the RANS and LES techniques of turbulence modelling, compare it and take their advantages. We designed and performed series of 3D numerical simulations of both cold flow and combustion in complex geometry of industrial burner. It seems to us that the proper approach for modelling of biomass syngas combustion is steady flamelets model.Simulations performed with RANS closure are used as the initialisation of LES models, but their main goal is to predict the long-time oscillation of pressure and temperature observed in the working combustion chamber. On the other hand the main goal of the simulations with LES closure is to predict the proper level of short-time behaviour of the flame and local phenomena.