Investigation of the effects of domain representation and boundary condition selection in numerical simulations of micro scale flows with phase change

Cavitation is a phenomenon affected considerably by the underlying pressure waves that occur on similar timeand length scales as the bubble dynamics. Thus appropriate representation of wave dynamics within numericalframeworks is of paramount importance for the prediction of the phase change process in the nozzle as well as thesubsequent spray formation. In this paper we focus on investigating the sensitivity of the wave dynamics within acompressible Large Eddy Simulation framework with regards to downstream geometry and boundary representation.Diesel was used as working fluid and was injected at various pressures through a micro-channel. Results interms of vapour fraction, velocity and pressure are compared with the experimental data of Winklhofer [30, 31]. Thedownstream domain length and reflectivity properties are shown to exert a significant effect on in-nozzle processes

Mixing modelling framework based on Multiple Mapping Conditioning for the prediction of turbulent flame extinction

A stochastic implementation of the Multiple Mapping Conditioning (MMC) approach has been applied to a turbulent piloted jet diffusion flame (Sandia flame F) that is close to extinction. Two classic mixing models (Curl’s and IEM) are introduced in the MMC context to model the turbulent mixing. The suggested model involves the use of a reference space (that is mapped to mixture fraction space) in order to define particle proximity. The addition of the MMC ideas to the IEM and Curl’s models, that is suggested in the current work, aspires to combine the simplicity of these two models with the enforced compositional locality without violating the linearity and independence principles. The formulation of the approach is discussed in detail and results are presented for the mixing field and reactive species. The predictions are compared with joint-scalar PDF simulations using the same mixing models and experimental data. Moreover, the sensitivity of the model to the particle number is examined. It is shown that MMC is less sensitive to the number of particles and can generally produce improved predictions of major and minor chemically reacting species with a lower number of particles

Validation study of large-eddy simulations of wake stabilized reacting flows using artificial flame thickening approaches

Wake flows are the preferred mode of flame stabilization in lean premixed combustion in gas turbine engines, low NOx burners, afterburners etc. These flows exhibit inherent unsteadiness and for their numerical modeling and simulations, large eddy simulation (LES) techniques with an appropriate combustion model and reaction mechanism afford a balance between computational complexity and predictive accuracy. Before using them in practical systems, these techniques must be validated against experimental measurements in a number of canonical cases. In this work, results from LES of non-reacting and reacting flows are compared to data from a number of experiments, corresponding to the following configurations: a triangular bluff body in a rectangular duct, a backward facing step, and a cylindrical sudden expansion with swirl. The artificial flame thickening approach is applied for modeling turbulence-combustion interactions at small scales. Algebraic and equationbased efficiency function models are implemented, along with an appropriate reduced chemistry mechanism. A novel dynamic formulation for the efficiency function based on the flame-wrinkling equation that explicitly incorporates the influence of strain and time-history effects is proposed, and a detailed combustion chemistry mechanism is also used. Results show that the approaches are effective in simulating turbulent premixed combustion

A numerical simulation of single and two-phase flow in porous media: A pore sale observation of effective microscopic forces

Modelling fluid flow in rock porous media is a challenging physical problem. Simplified macroscopic flow models, such as the well-known Darcy's law, fail to predict accurately the pressure drop because many flow parameters are not considered while simplifications are made for the multi-scale structure of the rocks. In order to improve the physical understanding for such flows and the accuracy of existent models, there is a need for realistic geometries to be investigated. The present work describes initially single-phase flow simulations performed on numerical grids obtained from reconstruction of 2D images of rock porous media found in the open literature using ANSA®. The results in terms of preferential paths and tortuosity are compared with experiments. Following, multiphase flow models have been utilised focusing on the capturing of the liquid-gas interface motion. It is concluded that for such complex porous rock problems, the multi-scale flow development is grid dependent

Simulation of micro-flow dynamics at low capillary numbers using adaptive interface compression

A numerical framework for modelling micro-scale multiphase flows with sharp interfaces has been developed. The suggested methodology is targeting the efficient and yet rigorous simulation of complex interface motion at capillary dominated flows (low capillary number). Such flows are encountered in various configurations ranging from micro-devices to naturally occurring porous media. The methodology uses as a basis the Volume-of-Fluid (VoF) method combined with additional sharpening smoothing and filtering algorithms for the interface capturing. These algorithms help the minimisation of the parasitic currents present in flow simulations, when viscous forces and surface tension dominate inertial forces, like in porous media. The framework is implemented within a finite volume code (OpenFOAM) using a limited Multidimensional Universal Limiter with Explicit Solution (MULES) implicit formulation, which allows larger time steps at low capillary numbers to be utilised. In addition, an adaptive interface compression scheme is introduced for the first time in order to allow for a dynamic estimation of the compressive velocity only at the areas of interest and thus has the advantage of avoiding the use of a-priori defined parameters. The adaptive method is found to increase the numerical accuracy and to reduce the sensitivity of the methodology to tuning parameters. The accuracy and stability of the proposed model is verified against five different benchmark test cases. Moreover, numerical results are compared against analytical solutions as well as available experimental data, which reveal improved solutions relative to the standard VoF solver

Multiple mapping conditioning of turbulent jet diffusion flames

The multiple mapping conditioning (MMC) approach is applied to two non-piloted CH4/H2/N2CH4/H2/N2 turbulent jet diffusion flames with Reynolds numbers of Re = 15,200 and 22,800. The work presented here examines primarily the suitability of MMC to simulate CH4/H2CH4/H2 flames with varying Re numbers. The equations are solved in a prescribed Gaussian reference space with only one stochastic reference variable emulating the fluctuations of mixture fraction. The mixture fraction is considered as the only major species on which the remaining minor species are conditioned. Fluctuations around the conditional means are ignored. It is shown that the statistics of the mapped reference field are an accurate model for the statistics of the physical field for both flames. A transformation of the Gaussian reference space introduced in previous work on MMC is used to express the MMC model in the same form as CMC. The most important advantage of this transformation is that the conditionally averaged scalar dissipation term is in a closed form. The corresponding temperature and reactive species predictions are generally in good agreement with experimental data. The application to real laboratory flames and the assessment of the new conditional scalar dissipation model for the closure of the singly conditioned CMC equation is the major novelty of this paper. The results are therefore primarily examined with respect to changes of the conditionally averaged quantities in mixture fraction space

Stochastic multiple mapping conditioning for a piloted, turbulent jet diffusion flame

A stochastic implementation of the multiple mapping conditioning (MMC) approach has been applied to a turbulent jet diffusion flame (Sandia Flame D). This implementation combines the advantages of the basic concepts of a mapping closure methodology with a probability density approach. A single reference variable has been chosen. Its evolution is described by a Markov process and then mapped to the mixture fraction space. Scalar micro-mixing is modelled by a modified “interaction by exchange with the mean” (IEM) mixing model where the particles mix with their -in reference space- conditionally averaged means. The formulation of the closure leads to localness of mixing in mixture fraction space and consequently improved localness in composition space. Results for mixture fraction and reactive species are in good agreement with the experimental data. The MMC methodology allows for the introduction of an additional “minor dissipation time scale” that controls the fluctuations around the conditional mean. A sensitivity analysis based on the conditional temperature fluctuations as a function of this time scale does not endorse earlier estimates for its modelling, but only relatively large dissipation time scales of the order of the integral turbulence time scale yield acceptable levels of conditional fluctuations that agree with experiments. With the choice of a suitable dissipation time scale, MMC-IEM thus provides a simple mixing model that is capable of capturing extinction phenomena, and it gives improved predictions over conventional PDF predictions using simple IEM mixing models

Evaluation of two-phase flow solvers using Level Set and Volume of Fluid methods

Two principal methods have been used to simulate the evolution of two-phase immiscible flows of liquid and gas separated by an interface. These are the Level-Set (LS) method and the Volume of Fluid (VoF) method. Both methods attempt to represent the very sharp interface between the phases and to deal with the large jumps in physical properties associated with it. Both methods have their own strengths and weaknesses. For example, the VoF method is known to be prone to excessive numerical diffusion, while the basic LS method has some difficulty in conserving mass. Major progress has been made in remedying these deficiencies, and both methods have now reached a high level of physical accuracy. Nevertheless, there remains an issue, in that each of these methods has been developed by different research groups, using different codes and most importantly the implementations have been fine tuned to tackle different applications. Thus, it remains unclear what are the remaining advantages and drawbacks of each method relative to the other, and what might be the optimal way to unify them. In this paper, we address this gap by performing a direct comparison of two current state-of-the-art variations of these methods (LS: RCLSFoam and VoF: interPore) and implemented in the same code (OpenFoam). We subject both methods to a pair of benchmark test cases while using the same numerical meshes to examine a) the accuracy of curvature representation, b) the effect of tuning parameters, c) the ability to minimise spurious velocities and d) the ability to tackle fluids with very different densities. For each method, one of the test cases is chosen to be fairly benign while the other test case is expected to present a greater challenge. The results indicate that both methods can be made to work well on both test cases, while displaying different sensitivity to the relevant parameters

Large-eddy simulation of spray combustion in a gas turbine combustor

The paper describes the results of a comprehensive study of turbulent mixing, fuel spray dispersion and evaporation and combustion in a gas-turbine combustor geometry (the DLR Generic Single Sector Combustor) with the aid of Large Eddy Simulation (LES). An Eulerian description of the continuous phase is adopted and is coupled with a Lagrangian formulation of the dispersed phase. The sub-grid scale (sgs) probability density function approach in conjunction with the stochastic fields solution method is used to account for sgs turbulence-chemistry interactions. Stochastic models are used to represent the influence of sgs fluctuations on droplet dispersion and evaporation. Two different test cases are simulated involving reacting and non-reacting conditions. The simulations of the underlying flow field are satisfying in terms of mean statistics and the structure of the flame is captured accurately. Detailed spray simulations are also presented and compared with measurements where the fuel spray model is shown to reproduce the measured Sauter Mean Diameter (SMD) and the velocity of the droplets accurately