Partially premixed reacting acetone spray using LES and FGM tabulated chemistry

Abstract

Large Eddy Simulations of dilute spray-air reacting two phase flow are performed following an Eulerian–Lagrangian approach. The method includes a full two-way coupling in which phase properties and spray source terms are interchanging between the two phases within each coupling time step. To achieve sub-grid scale closures in the filtered equations used for LES of the carrier phase, the Smagorinsky model with dynamic procedure is applied for the flow field while an eddy diffusivity approach is used for the scalar fluxes. The phase transition of droplets is captured using a non-equilibrium evaporation model. The evaporating droplets are tracked using a Langragian procedure. They are injected in a polydisperse manner and generated in time dependent boundary conditions. The combustion is described by a reaction progress variable and a mixture fraction as well as their variances in the line of the Flamelet Generated Manifold method. The ultimate objective of this work is to appraise the ability of this LES-based spray module developed here to retrieve the spray flow and combustion properties of the configuration under study. The configuration consists of a spray jet issued into a pilot flame and a co-flowing atmospheric air in which droplets traverse a pre-evaporation distance and release part of their mass before reaching the combustion zone. Thereby the spray pre-evaporation turns the combustion regime from diffusion to partially premixed. The fuel used is liquid acetone, which is modeled by a detailed reaction mechanism including 84 species and 409 elementary reactions. A series of spray established at different operating conditions are investigated, analyzed and compared. Analysis allows to gain a deep insight into the process ongoing. Comparisons include exhaust gas temperature, droplet velocities and corresponding fluctuations, droplet mean diameters and spray volume flux at different distances from the exit planes. An overall good agreement is reported.