Numerical Simulation of a Turbulent Flow Over a Backward Facing Step With Heated Wall: Effect of Pulsating Velocity and Oscillating Wall

An accurate prediction of the flow and the thermal boundary layer is required to properly simulate gas to wall heat transfer in a turbulent flow. This is studied with a view to application to gas turbine combustors. A typical gas turbine combustion chamber flow presents similarities with the well-studied case of turbulent flow over a backward facing step, especially in the near-wall regions where the heat transfer phenomena take place. However, the combustion flow in a gas turbine engine is often of a dynamic nature and enclosed by a vibrating liner. Therefore apart from steady state situations, cases with an oscillatory inlet flow and vibrating walls are investigated. Results of steady state and transient calculations for the flow field, friction coefficient, and heat transfer coefficient, with the use of various turbulence models, are compared with literature data. It has been observed that the variations in the excitation frequency of the inlet flow and wall vibrations have an influence on the instantaneous heat transfer coefficient profile. However, significant effect on the time mean value and position of the heat transfer peak is only visible for the inlet velocity profile fluctuations with frequency approximately equal to the turbulence bursting frequency

Measurement and Modeling of the Acoustic Response in a High Pressure Combustor

In this paper, a one dimensional acoustic network model is presented which can be used as a design tool to predict the limit cycle pressure oscillations in a gas turbine combustor. Analytically represented models are combined with measured flame transfer functions and well defined boundary conditions. Additionally acoustic damping due to turbulence, acoustic reflection at contractions, modification of the acoustic speed of sound due to a mean flow and effect of temperature gradient that play a role in the acoustic modeling of combustion systems have been included in this network model. The model is applied on a high-pressure laboratory combustor. Finally, the measured and predicted dynamic behaviour in the combustor is compared. The results indicate the network modelling approach is a promising design tool for gas turbine combustion application

Sensitivity of the Numerical Prediction of Turbulent Combustion Dynamics in the LIMOUSINE Combustor

The objective of this study is to investigate the sensitivity and accuracy of the reaction flow-field prediction for the LIMOUSINE combustor with regard to choices in computational mesh and turbulent combustion model. The LIMOUSINE combustor is a partially premixed, bluff body-stabilized natural gas combustor designed to operate at 40–80 kW and atmospheric pressure and used to study combustion instabilities. The transient simulation of a turbulent combusting flow with the purpose to study thermoacoustic instabilities is a very time-consuming process. For that reason, the meshing approach leading to accurate numerical prediction, known sensitivity, and minimized amount of mesh elements is important. Since the numerical dissipation (and dispersion) is highly dependent on, and affected by, the geometrical mesh quality, it is of high importance to control the mesh distribution and element size across the computational domain. Typically, the structural mesh topology allows using much fewer grid elements compared to the unstructured grid; however, an unstructured mesh is favorable for flows in complex geometries. To explore computational stability and accuracy, the numerical dissipation of the cold flow with mixing of fuel and air is studied first in the absence of the combustion process. Thereafter, the studies are extended to combustible flows using standard available ansys-cfx combustion models. To validate the predicted variable fields of the combustor's transient reactive flows, the numerical results for dynamic pressure and temperature variations, resolved under structured and unstructured mesh conditions, are compared with experimental data. The obtained results show minor dependence on the used mesh in the velocity and pressure profiles of the investigated grids under nonreacting conditions. More significant differences are observed in the mixing behavior of air and fuel flows. Here, the numerical dissipation of the (unstructured) tetrahedral mesh topology is higher than in the case of the (structured) hexahedral mesh. For that reason, the combusting flow, resolved with the use of the hexahedral mesh, presents better agreement with experimental data and demands less computational effort. Finally, in the paper, the performance of the combustion model for reacting flow is presented and the main issues of the applied combustion modeling are reviewe