Validation of Bluff-body Swirling Flame with RANS Turbulent Model and Comparison of the Results with LES Turbulent Model

Year 2024, , 59 - 74, 01.06.2024

Orhan Veli Kazancı , Yakup Erhan Böke

https://doi.org/10.5541/ijot.1380710

Abstract

The energy required for technological advancement is primarily derived from hydrocarbon combustion, which is a key topic in thermodynamics. The stability of the flame in hydrocarbon combustion is a critical parameter that impacts both burner design and combustion efficiency. Various methods have been employed in the literature to achieve a stable flame, with swirl flow being one technique that enhances combustion performance in engineering applications. This study focuses on the numerical analysis of the SM1 flame from Sydney swirl flames. Initially, the flow incorporating the two-equation Re-Normalization Group (RNG) k-ε and Shear Stress Transport (SST) k-ω turbulence models, along with the chemical reactions of CH4 combustion using the GRI 3.0 reaction mechanism, was modeled and compared with experimental data. Subsequently, the numerical results obtained from the Shear Stress Transport k-ω turbulence model, which demonstrated the best agreement with experimental data, were compared with results from a numerical analysis in the literature using the Large Eddy Simulation (LES) turbulence model. The predictive capabilities of these two turbulence models, along with their behavior in the flow region, were evaluated. The comparison revealed that for stable flames within the Sydney swirl flame family, the Shear Stress Transport k-ω turbulence model, which provides results in a more efficient manner, is sufficient compared to the computationally expensive Large Eddy Simulation turbulence model. This choice is made possible by utilizing a solution algorithm tailored to the flow characteristics and appropriate boundary conditions.

Keywords

Swirling flow, thermodynamics, non-premixed combustion, RANS, LES

References

• A. S. M. Al-Obaidi and T. Nguyenhuynh, “Renewable vs. conventional energy: Which wins the race to sustainable development?,” IOP Conf. Ser. Mater. Sci. Eng., vol. 434, no. 1, 2018.
• S. R. Brinkley Jr., B. Lewis, “The Thermodynamics of Combustion Gase General Considerations” April 1952. https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/The-Thermodynamics-of-Combustion-Gases%3A-General-Brinkley-Lewis/3f1cbf613422d0b230ab716630acec0b3d34ecd4 (Accessed 22 December 2023).
• S. Sugawara and I. Michiyoshi, “The Thermo-Aerodynamical Analysis of Combustion Gas Flow (1st Report),” Bulletin of JSME, 1959. https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/jsme1958/2/5/2_5_138/_pdf/-char/en (Accessed 22 December 2023).
• J. H. S. Lee and C. Guirao, “Fast Reactions in Energetic Systems,” in Fast Reactions in Energetic Systems, C. Capellos and R. F. Walker, Eds. NATO Advanced Study Institutes, 1981, pp. 245–313.
• B. M. R. De Meester, B. Naud, U. Maas, “Hybrid RANS/PDF Calculations of a Swirling Bluff Body Flame (‘SM1’): Influence of the Mixing Model,” in MCS 7, 2011, vol. 13, no. 1, pp. 43–50.
• B. Kashir, S. Tabejamaat, and N. Jalalatian, “A numerical study on combustion characteristics of blended methane-hydrogen bluff-body stabilized swirl diffusion flames,” Int. J. Hydrogen Energy, vol. 40, no. 18, pp. 6243–6258, 2015.
• “TNF Workshop.” https://tnfworkshop.org/ (Accessed 22 December 2023).
• P. A. M. Kalt, Y. M. Al-Abdeli, A. R. Masri, and R. S. Barlow, “Swirling turbulent non-premixed flames of methane: Flow field and compositional structure,” Proc. Combust. Inst., vol. 29, no. 2, pp. 1913–1919, 2002.
• A. R. Masri, P. A. M. Kalt, and R. S. Barlow, “The compositional structure of swirl-stabilised turbulent nonpremixed flames,” Combust. Flame, vol. 137, no. 1–2, pp. 1–37, 2004.
• M. Safavi and E. Amani, “A comparative study of turbulence models for non-premixed swirl-stabilized flames,” J. Turbul., vol. 19, no. 11, pp. 1017–1050, 2019.
• A. Radwan, K. A. Ibrahim, A. Hanafy, and K. M. Saqr, “On rans modeling of unconfined swirl flow,” CFD Lett., vol. 6, no. 4, pp. 159–174, 2014.
• Y. Yang and S. K. Kær, “Large-eddy simulations of the non-reactive flow in the Sydney swirl burner,” Int. J. Heat Fluid Flow, vol. 36, pp. 47–57, 2012.
• T. M. R. Rahman, W. Asrar, and S. A. Khan, “An investigation of RANS simulations for swirl-stabilized isothermal turbulent flow in a gas turbine burner,” CFD Lett., vol. 11, no. 9, pp. 14–31, 2019.
• X. Yang, Z. He, S. Dong, and H. Tan, “Combustion Characteristics of Bluff-Body Turbulent Swirling Flames with Coaxial Air Microjet,” Energy and Fuels, vol. 31, no. 12, pp. 14306–14319, 2017.
• J. P. West, C. P. T. Groth, and J. T. C. Hu, “Assessment of hybrid RANS/LES methods for gas-turbine combustor-relevant turbulent flows,” 22nd AIAA Comput. Fluid Dyn. Conf., no. June, pp. 1–20, 2015.
• J. Fu, Y. Tang, J. Li, Y. Ma, W. Chen, and H. Li, “Four kinds of the two-equation turbulence model’s research on flow field simulation performance of DPF’s porous media and swirl-type regeneration burner,” Appl. Therm. Eng., vol. 93, pp. 397–404, 2016.
• R. Weber, B. M. Visser, and F. Boysan, “Assessment of turbulence modeling for engineering prediction of swirling vortices in the near burner zone,” Int. J. Heat Fluid Flow, vol. 11, no. 3, pp. 225–235, 1990.
• A. Gupta and R. Kumar, “Three-dimensional turbulent swirling flow in a cylinder: Experiments and computations,” Int. J. Heat Fluid Flow, vol. 28, no. 2, pp. 249–261, 2007.
• F. C. Christo and B. B. Dally, “Modeling turbulent reacting jets issuing into a hot and diluted coflow,” Combust. Flame, vol. 142, no. 1–2, pp. 117–129, 2005.
• M. Lu, Z. Fu, X. Yuan, J. Wu, and S. W. Sabir, “Numerical Simulation of Turbulent Non-premixed Combustion Processes for Methane and Dimethyl Ether Binary Fuels,” ACS Omega, vol. 6, no. 10, pp. 6629–6642, 2021.
• P. Wang, J. Fröhlich, and U. Maas, “Impact of location and flow rate oscillation of the pilot jet on the flow structures in swirling premixed flames,” J. Turbul., vol. 11, pp. 1–20, 2010.
• B. Wegner, A. Maltsev, C. Schneider, A. Sadiki, A. Dreizler, and J. Janicka, “Assessment of unsteady RANS in predicting swirl flow instability based on LES and experiments,” Int. J. Heat Fluid Flow, vol. 25, no. 3, pp. 528–536, 2004.
• L. Chen and A. F. Ghoniem, “Simulation of oxy-coal combustion in a 100 kW th test facility using RANS and LES: A validation study,” Energy and Fuels, vol. 26, no. 8, pp. 4783–4798, 2012.
• W. Malalasekera, K. K. J. Ranga-Dinesh, S. S. Ibrahim, and A. R. Masri, “LES of recirculation and vortex breakdown in swirling flames,” Combust. Sci. Technol., vol. 180, no. 5, pp. 809–832, 2008.
• H. El-Asrag and S. Menon, “Large eddy simulation of bluff-body stabilized swirling non-premixed flames,” Proc. Combust. Inst., vol. 31 II, no. 2, pp. 1747–1754, 2007.
• L. Y. Hu, L. X. Zhou, and Y. H. Luo, “Large-eddy simulation of the Sydney swirling NonPremixed flame and validation of several subgrid-scale models,” Numer. Heat Transf. Part B Fundam., vol. 53, no. 1, pp. 39–58, 2008.
• J. Xu, D. Huang, R. Chen, and H. Meng, “An Improved NO Prediction Model for Large Eddy Simulation of Turbulent Combustion,” Flow, Turbul. Combust., vol. 106, no. 3, pp. 881–899, 2021.
• K. Luo, J. Yang, Y. Bai, and J. Fan, “Large eddy simulation of turbulent combustion by a dynamic second-order moment closure model,” Fuel, vol. 187, pp. 457–467, 2017.
• Y. Zhiyin, “Large-eddy simulation: Past, present and the future,” Chinese J. Aeronaut., vol. 28, no. 1, pp. 11–24, 2015.
• Y. M. Al-Abdeli and A. R. Masri, “Recirculation and flowfield regimes of unconfined non-reacting swirling flows,” Exp. Therm. Fluid Sci., vol. 27, no. 5, pp. 655–665, 2003.
• Y. M. Al-Abdeli and A. R. Masri, “Stability characteristics and flowfields of turbulent non-premixed swirling flames,” Combust. Theory Model., vol. 7, no. 4, pp. 731–766, 2003.
• Ansys Inc., “ANSYS FLUENT Theory Guide,” ANSYS Inc., USA, vol. Release 20, no. R1,http://www.afs.enea.it/project/neptunius/ docs/fluent/html/th/main_pre.htm (Accessed 22 December 2023).
• F. G. Schmitt, “About Boussinesq’s turbulent viscosity hypothesis: historical remarks and a direct evaluation of its validity,” Comptes Rendus - Mec., vol. 335, no. 9–10, pp. 617–627, 2007.
• Y. Liu, X. Guan, and C. Xu, “An improved scale-adaptive simulation model for massively separated flows,” Int. J. Aerosp. Eng., vol. 2018, 2018.