PDF mixing time scales for premixed combustion in the laminar flame limit

Abstract

A new mixing time scale for PDF calculations of premixed combustion in the laminar flame limit is introduced. It is based on the characteristics of the “random walk” diffusion process and accurately captures scalar micro-mixing such that physical features of the premixed flames are preserved. The speed of a freely-propagating laminar flame can be captured accurately. Extreme stochastic events may, however, lead to flame acceleration, but flame stability can be recovered with the introduction of a conditioning variable that relaxes towards an Eulerian reference field. With conditioning the predicted flame speed is quite insensitive towards the exact value of the only modelling parameter. This modelling parameter then allows to control the minor scalar fluctuations and deviations from a flamelet structure which is thought to be one of the key features of conditioning methods.