Influence of flow topology and scalar structure on flame-tangential diffusion in turbulent non-premixed combustion

Wang Han, Arne Scholtissek, Felix Dietzsch, Reza Jahanbakhshi, Christian Hasse

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract / Description of output

Flamelet-based combustion models have been extensively used in the modeling of turbulent non-premixed combustion due to their notable advantages in reducing computational cost. The classical one-dimensional flamelet equations are derived based on an assumption: flame-normal transport of thermochemical state variables in mixture fraction gradient direction dominates over flame-tangential transport along iso-surfaces of mixture fraction. The motivation of this work is to quantify the contribution of tangential diffusion (TD) and seek the source of TD, since several recent studies have shown that TD effects may play an important role in the regions with large curvature and finite-rate chemistry. In this work, the most probable cause and effect chain that elucidates the source of TD in a turbulent non-premixed jet flame is proposed for the first time from a flow topology perspective. To this end, local flow topology and its effects on scalar structure are first investigated. It is found that the local flow structures with unstable focus compressing (UFC) topology have the highest probability of large compressive strain and that the negative correlation between curvature and strain strongly depends on local flow topology, scalar structure and reaction. Then, the influence of flow topology and scalar structure on the relevance of TD is assessed with the angle between reactive scalars and mixture fraction. The results show that TD effects mainly exist in the regions with high curvatures and low strain rates or scalar dissipation rates. These findings suggest that the local flow structures with low probability of UFC topology tend to cause significant flame-tangential diffusion in the turbulent non-premixed flame.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)21-36
JournalCombustion and Flame
Volume206
Early online date1 May 2019
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Aug 2019

Keywords / Materials (for Non-textual outputs)

  • flow topology
  • scalar structure
  • scalar mixing
  • flamelet
  • tangential diffusion

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