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An Improved NO Prediction Model for Large Eddy Simulation of Turbulent Combustion

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Abstract

Accurate prediction of nitrogen oxides (NOX) emissions is of great importance in combustion simulations. This work proposes an improved model to predict NO distributions in turbulent flames, based on the large eddy simulation approach and flamelet-progress-variable turbulence combustion model. A separate table for NO reaction rate is constructed to account for both unsteady and nonadiabatic effects on NO production. Different from the existing models, the nonadiabatic effect is considered by specifying different enthalpy defects by a scaling factor in the flamelet calculations. Additionally, it is observed that the transient variation of NO reaction rate with NO concentration exhibits two linear stages. As a result, only three flamelet databases are included to describe the NO reaction rate in a transient process, thereby simplifying the flamelet table while maintaining model accuracy. The proposed NO prediction model is validated in large eddy simulations of turbulent combustion, including the classic Sandia D and the Sydney swirling SM1 flames. The calculated NO variations show good agreement with experimental data, demonstrating the applicability and accuracy of the proposed model.

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Availability of Data and Material

Supplementary material enclosed.

Code Availability

Not applicable.

Abbreviations

a i :

Planck mean absorption coefficient of species i

C :

Progress variable

C p :

Constant-pressure specific heat

D :

Molecular diffusivity

D b :

Diameter of bluff body

D t :

Turbulent diffusivity

H :

Total enthalpy

h i :

Enthalpy of species i

m i :

Chemical production rate of species i

P :

Pressure

P i :

Partial pressure of species i

Pr t :

Turbulent Prandtl number

Sc t :

Turbulent Schmidt number

t :

Time

T :

Temperature

T ∞ :

Background temperature

u i :

Velocity in i direction

x i :

Coordinate in i direction

Y i :

Mass fraction of species i

Z :

Mixture fraction

α :

Thermal diffusivity

α t :

Turbulent thermal diffusivity

β :

Scaling factor of radiative source term

λ :

Thermal conductivity

μ t :

Turbulent viscosity

ρ :

Density

σ :

Stefan–Boltzman constant

τ ij :

Stress tensor

χ :

Scalar dissipation rate

ω c :

Chemical production rate of progress variable

ω NO :

Chemical production rate of NO

–:

Filtering operation

∼:

Favre-filtering operation

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Acknowledgements

This research was funded by the National Science and Technology Major Project (2017-III-0005-0030).

Funding

National Science and Technology Major Project (2017-III-0005-0030).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, 310027, Zhejiang, China

    Jianguo Xu, Dongxin Huang, Ruiyan Chen & Hua Meng

Authors
  1. Jianguo Xu
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  2. Dongxin Huang
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  3. Ruiyan Chen
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  4. Hua Meng
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Contributions

J. Xu conducted a majority part of this work and wrote the first draft of the manuscript; D. Huang and R. Chen helped with coding and numerical data analyses; Professor H. Meng proposed the research topic, guided the research process, and finalized the manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Hua Meng.

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Electronic Supplementary Material

Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.

File 1

Calculated data of transient NO evolution process in CH4-air laminar flames (XLSX 140 kb)

File 2

Calculated data of Sandia D flame (XLSX 118 kb)

File 3

Calculated data of SM1 flame (XLSX 104 kb)

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Xu, J., Huang, D., Chen, R. et al. An Improved NO Prediction Model for Large Eddy Simulation of Turbulent Combustion. Flow Turbulence Combust 106, 881–899 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10494-020-00204-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10494-020-00204-3

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