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Fluent Software Training
Combustion Apr 2005
Advanced Combustion
Modeling
in FLUENT
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Fluent Software Training
Combustion Apr 2005
Course Agenda
8:00- 8:30 Introduction to Combustion Modeling
8:30-10:00 Combustion Models I
10:00-11:00 Hands-on Exercise Session I
11:00-12:00 Combustion Models II
12:00-1:00 Lunch
1:00-1:45 Additional Physical Models
Discrete Phase Modeling and Spray Models
1:45-2:30 Additional Physical Models
Radiation Modeling
Pollutant Modeling
2:30-3:00 Combustion Modeling
Case Studies
Strategies
3:00-5:00 Hands-on Exercise Session II
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Introduction to Combustion Modeling
Applications of Combustion Modeling
Overview of Capabilities in FLUENT 6
Meshes for Combustion Simulations
Kinetics and Turbulence-Chemistry Interaction
Scaling Analysis
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Applications of Combustion Modeling
Wide range of homogeneous
and heterogeneous reacting
flows:
z Furnaces
z Boilers
z Process heaters
z Gas turbines
z Rocket engines
Predictions of:
z Flow field and mixing
characteristics
z Temperature field
z Species concentrations
z Particulates and pollutants
Temperature in a Gas Furnace
CO
2
Mass Fraction
Stream Function
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Overview of Combustion Modeling
FLUENT 6 provides an extensive array of physical models for combustion
simulations.
Zone-based definition of volumetric and surface reaction mechanisms
z Reactions can be turned off/on in different fluid zones
z Allow different reaction mechanisms in different zones
FLUENT 6 provides maximum mesh flexibility, and GAMBIT 2
makes it easy to generate hybrid meshes.
Additional distinctive capabilities include:
z Materials database
z Robust and accurate solver
z Solution-adaptive mesh refinement (conformal and hanging-node)
z Industry-leading parallel performance
z User-friendly GUI, post-processing and reporting
z Highly customizable through user defined functions
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Aspects of Reaction Modeling
Dispersed Phase Models
Droplet/particle dynamics
Heterogeneous reaction
Devolatilization
Evaporation
Governing Transport
Equations
Mass
Momentum (turbulence)
Energy
Chemical Species
Pollutant Models
Radiative Heat
Transfer Models
Reaction Models
Combustion
Premixed, Partially premixed
and Non-premixed
Infinitely Fast Chemistry
Finite Rate Chemistry
Surface Reactions
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Reaction Models in Fluent
Laminar Finite-Rate Model
Eddy-Dissipation Concept (EDC) Model
Composition PDF transport Model
Non-Premixed
Laminar Flamelet
Model
Finite-Rate
Chemistry
Eddy Dissipation Model
Partially
Premixed Model
(Reaction Progress
Variable + Mixture
Fraction)
Non-Premixed
Equilibrium
Model
(Mixture Fraction)
Premixed
Combustion
Model
(Reaction Progress
Variable)
*
Infinitely Fast
Chemistry
Partially
Premixed
Combustion
Non-Premixed
Combustion
Premixed
Combustion
* Rate classification not truly applicable since species mass fraction is not determined.
Flow config.
Chemistry
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Surface Combustion
Discrete phase model
z Turbulent particle dispersion
Stochastic tracking
Particle cloud model
z Pulverized coal and spray models
Radiation models: DTRM, P-1, Rosseland, S2S and Discrete Ordinates
Turbulence models: k-, RNG k-, Realizable k-, , RSMand LES and
DES
Pollutant models: NO
x
with reburn chemistry and soot
Other Models in FLUENT 6
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Meshes for Combustion Simulations
For convergence and accuracy, a quality mesh is critical ...
z Low skew (<0.9 everywhere)
z Moderate aspect ratios (<10)
z Sufficient but not excessive resolution
z Gradual cell volume changes (<30%)
z Orthogonality at boundaries
In FLUENT 6, unstructured mesh technology allows ...
z Complex geometries
z GAMBIT provides rapid and powerful unstructured mesh generation
z Local resolution of flow features
Hybrid mesh (hexes, tets, prisms, pyramids)
Hanging node adaption
Non-conformal interfaces
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Complicated Geometry-Tetrahedral Mesh
Burner has several
complicated parts
Flow is not aligned
in any particular
direction
High gradients at
sonic inlets
Use a tetrahedral
mesh
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Complicated Geometry-Tetrahedral Mesh
Tetrahedral mesh
allows for a fine
mesh on the small
inlet holes with
larger cells in the
furnace domain.
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Hybrid Mesh - Boiler
hexes
pyramids
tets
Conical section at bottom
favors a tetrahedral mesh
Heat exchanger plates at top
are suited for a hex mesh
Prisms can be extruded off
the triangular surface at the
corner inlet planes to model
the windbox - get better jet
penetration
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Semi-Automatic Hex/Hybrid Meshing
Nuclear Reactor Head Typical Burner
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FLUENT 6: Arbitrary Mesh Interfaces
Mesh flexibility,
parts-based meshing
and model building
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Mesh Adaption
Dynamic hanging node adaption to resolve temperature gradients more accurately.
300 kW BERL Combustor
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Gas Phase Combustion
Spatio-temporal conservation equations (Navier-Stokes) for
z Mass ()
z Momentum ()
z Energy (h)
z Chemical Species (Y
k
)
The conservation equations have the general form
rate of change convection diffusion source
It is useful to quantify energy in terms of enthalpy, defined as .
chemical thermal
( ) ( )

+
|
|
.
|

\
|

S
x
D
x
u
x t
i i
i
i

+ =
species
T
T
pk
o
k k
o
) dT c h ( Y h
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Chemical Kinetics
The k
th
species mass fraction transport equation is:
Nomenclature: chemical species, denoted S
k
, react as:
Example:
( ) ( )
k
i
k
k
i
k i
i
k
R
x
Y
D
x
Y u
x
Y
t
+
|
|
.
|

\
|

= =

N
1 k
k k
N
1 k
k k
S " S '
O H 2 CO O 2 CH
2 2 2 4
+ +
2 " 1 " 0 " 0 "
0 ' 0 ' 2 ' 1 '
O H S CO S O S CH S
4 3 2 1
4 3 2 1
2 4 2 3 2 2 4 1
= = = =
= = = =
= = = =
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Chemical Kinetics
The calculated reaction rate is proportional to the products of the
reactant concentrations raised to the power of their respective
stoichiometric coefficients.
k
th
species reaction rate (for a single reaction):
where A = pre-exponential factor
C
j
= molar concentration = Y
j
/ M
j
M
k
= molecular weight of species k
E = activation energy
R = universal gas constant = 8313 J / kgmol K
= temperature exponent
Note that for global reactions, , and may be noninteger

|
|
.
|

\
|
=
N
1 j
'
j
RT
E
k k k k
*
k
C e AT ) ' " ( M R
k
*
k
' '
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Flames Length
scale (m)
Velocity
scale (m/s)
Reynolds
number
Gas turbine combustor 0.1 50 250,000
Fire 5 2 500,000
After-burner 0.5 100 2,500,000
Utility Furnace 10 10 5,000,000
Practical Combustion Processes are Turbulent
Smallest length scale in turbulent flow (called the Kolmogorov scale)
L / Re
3/4
, where L is the combustor characteristic dimension
Number of grid points required for Direct Numerical Simulation (DNS)
(resolving all flow scales) ~ (L/ )
3
= Re
9/4
Example: Re ~ 10
4
, number of grid points ~ 10
9
DNS is computationally intractable, and will remain so indefinitely
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Necessity for Combustion Modeling
Governing reacting Navier-Stokes equations are accurate,
but DNS is prohibitive ...
Turbulence
z Large range of time and length scales
z Model by time (Reynolds) averaging
Imagine a long exposure photograph of the
visualized flow
Introduces terms (the Reynolds stresses) which must be modeled
Chemistry
z Realistic chemical mechanisms have tens of species, hundreds of
reactions, and stiff kinetics (widely disparate time scales)
Determined for a limited number of fuels
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Reynolds (Time) Averaged Species Equation
{unsteady term} convection convection molecular mean
(zero for by mean by turbulent diffusion chemical
steady flows) velocity velocity fluctuations source term
are the k
th
species mass fraction, diffusion coefficient and
chemical source term respectively
Turbulent flux term modeled by mean gradient diffusion as,
, which is consistent in the k- context
Gas phase combustion modeling focuses on
z Arguably more difficult to model than the Reynolds stresses (turbulence)
( ) ( ) ( )
k
i
k
k
i
k i
i
k i
i
k
R
x
Y
D
x
" Y " u
x
Y u
x
Y
t
+
|
|
.
|

\
|

)
`

k k k
R , D , Y
k
R
i k t t k i
x / Y /Sc Y" u" =
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Turbulence Chemistry Coupling in Flames
( ) RT E exp C AT R
j
j
k
j
=

Arrhenius reaction rate terms are highly nonlinear

Cannot neglect the effects of turbulence fluctuations on chemical
production rates
) T ( R R k k
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Turbulence-Chemistry Interaction
Demonstration: single step methane reaction (A=2*10
11
, E=2*10
8
)
Assume turbulent fluid at a point has constant species concentration at all
times, but spends one third its time at T=300K, T=1000K and T=1700K
3 . 0
2
2 . 0
4 O H
2
1
CO O
2
1
CH
2 2 2 4
] O [ ] CH [ ) RT / E exp( A R R R R
O H 2 CO O 2 CH
2 2 2 4
= = = =
+ +
t
T
1700
1000
300
time trace
T
P(T)
PDF
300 1000 1700
T [K] 300 1000 1700
R [kgm
-3
s
-1
] 10
-25
1 10
5
1 3 4
1 3
s m kg 10 3 R
s m kg 1 ) T ( R


=
=
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Combustion Apr 2005
Modeling Chemical Kinetics in Combustion
Practical Approaches:
Reduced chemical mechanisms
z Finite rate/Eddy Dissipation model
Decouple chemistry from turbulent flow and mixing
z Mixture fraction approaches
Equilibrium chemistry PDF model
Laminar flamelet model
z Progress variable
Zimont model
z Mixture fraction and progress variable
Partially premixed combustion model
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Scaling Analysis
force viscous
force inertial
~
UL
Re
|
|
.
|

\
|

=
, U, L, are characteristic (e.g. inlet) density, velocity, length and
dynamic viscosity, respectively
Turbulence models valid at high Re
scale time chemical
scale time mixing
~
R /
/ k
~
R /
U / L
Da
slow ad slow ad

=
adiabatic flame density
slowest reaction rate at and stoichiometric concentrations
ad

ad
T
slow
R
Gas phase turbulent combustion models valid at high Da
Reynolds number
Damkohler Number
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Mach number
Boltzman number
speed acoustic
speed convection
~
c
U
Ma =
flux heat radiation
flux heat convection
~
T
) T Uc (
Bo
4
ad
inlet p

=
Stefan-Boltzman constant (5.672 10
-8
W/m
2
K
4
)
Radiation important at Bo < 10
Mixture fraction model valid at Ma < 0.3 (incompressible)
(assumes convection overwhelms conduction)
Scaling Analysis