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DNS of MILD combustion with mixture fraction variations

Published version
Peer-reviewed

Type

Article

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Authors

Abstract

Direct numerical simulations of Moderate or Intense Low-oxygen Dilution combustion inside a cubical domain are performed. The computational do- main is specified with inflow and outflow boundary conditions in one direction and periodic conditions in the other two directions. The inflowing mixture is constructed carefully in a preprocessing step and has spatially varying mixture fraction and reaction progress variable field. Thus, this mixture in- cludes a range of thermo-chemical state for a given mixture fraction value. The combustion kinetics is modelled using a 58-step skeletal mechanism in- cluding a chemiluminescent species, OH∗, for methane-air combustion. The study of reaction zone structures in the physical and mixture fraction spaces shows the presence of ignition fronts, lean and rich premixed flames and non-premixed combustion. These three modes of combustion are observed without the typical triple-flame structure and this results from the spatio-temporally varying mixture fraction field undergoing turbulent mixing and reaction. The flame index and its pdf are analysed to estimate the fractional contributions from these combustion modes to the total heat release rate. The lean premixed mode is observed to be quite dominant and contribution of non-premixed mode increased from about 11% to 20% when the mean oxygen mole fraction in the inflowing mixture is reduced from about 2.7% to 1.6%. Also, the non-premixed contribution increases if one decreases the integral length scale of the mixture fraction field. All of these results and observations are explained on physical basis.

Description

Keywords

Direct Numerical Simulation (DNS), MILD combustion, Flameless combustion

Journal Title

Combustion and Flame

Conference Name

Journal ISSN

0010-2180
1556-2921

Volume Title

189

Publisher

Elsevier BV
Sponsorship
EPSRC (1567652)
Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EP/K025791/1)
N.A.K.D. acknowledges the financial support of the Qualcomm European Research Studentship Fund in Technology. This work used the ARCHER UK National Supercomputing Service (http://www.archer.ac.uk) using computing time provided by EPSRC under the RAP project number e419 and the UKCTRF (e305). NS acknowledges the support of EPSRC. Y. M. acknowledges the support of JSPS Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists (B) Grant Number 16K18026.