Filtered Mass Density Function for Numerical Simulations of Spray Combustion

This paper briefly describes our recent efforts on the modeling and numerical simulations of two-phase turbulent reacting flows in realistic combustion systems with a new large-eddy simulation (LES) model. The model is constructed based on the two-phase extension of scalar filtered mass density function (FMDF) and a Lagrangian-Eulerian- Lagrangian mathematical/numerical methodology. In this methodology, the “resolved” fluid velocity field is obtained by solving the filtered form of the compressible Navier-Stokes equations with a high-order finite difference scheme. The liquid (droplet) phase and scalar (temperature and species mass fractions) fields are both obtained by stochastic Lagrangian models. There are two-way interactions between the phases and all the Eulerian and Lagrangian fields. The LES/FMDF is used for systematic analysis of turbulent combustion in the spray-controlled dump combustor and double-swirl spray burner for various flow and spray parameters. The effects of fuel type, spray angle, mass loading ratio, droplet size distribution, fuel/air composition, wall, and inflow/outflow conditions on the combustion are investigated. It has been found that the main features of the turbulence and combustion are modified by changing the inflow/outflow conditions. The LES/FMDF results also confirm the significance of the spray parameters.