Turbulence radiation interaction modeling in hydrocarbon pool fire simulations

Abstract

The importance of turbulent fluctuations in temperature and species concentration in thermal radiation transport modeling for combustion applications is well accepted by the radiation transport and combustion communities. A number of experimental and theoretical studies over the last twenty years have shown that fluctuations in the temperature and species concentrations may increase the effective emittance of a turbulent flame by as much as 50% to 300% over the value that would be expected from the mean temperatures and concentrations. With the possibility of such a large effect on the principal mode of heat transfer from a fire, it is extremely important for fire modeling efforts that turbulence radiation interaction be well characterized and possible modeling approaches understood. Toward this end, this report seeks to accomplish three goals. First, the principal turbulence radiation interaction closure terms are defined. Second, an order of magnitude analysis is performed to understand the relative importance of the various closure terms. Finally, the state of the art in turbulence radiation interaction closure modeling is reviewed. Hydrocarbon pool fire applications are of particular interest in this report and this is the perspective from which this review proceeds. Experimental and theoretical analysis suggests that, for this type of heavily sooting flame, the turbulent radiation interaction effect is dominated by the nonlinear dependence of the Planck function on the temperature. Additional effects due to the correlation between turbulent fluctuations in the absorptivity and temperature may be small relative to the Planck function effect for heavily sooting flames. This observation is drawn from a number of experimental and theoretical discussions. Nevertheless, additional analysis and data is needed to validate this observation for heavily sooting buoyancy dominated plumes.