Proceedings of the 7th International and 45th National Conference on Fluid Mechanics and Fluid Power (FMFP)

December 10-12, 2018, IIT Bombay, Mumbai, India

FMFP2018–PAPER NO. 358
Investigation of Bluff Body Stabilized Flames using Modal Decomposition

Sombuddha Bagchi Sourav Sarkar Uddalok Sen

Dept. of Mech. Engg., Jadavpur Dept. of Mech. Engg., Jadavpur Dept. of Mech. Engg., University of
University, Kol-32 University, Kol-32 Illinois at Chicago, IL 60607
sombuddha.bagchi@gmail.com souravsarkar.iitm@gmail.com uddalok.sen.us@gmail.com

Ashoke De Achintya Mukhopadhyay Swarnendu Sen

Dept. of Aerospace Engg, IIT Dept. of Mech. Engg., Jadavpur Dept. of Mech. Engg., Jadavpur
Kanpur, 208016 University, Kol-32 University, Kol-32
ashoke@iitk.ac.in achintya.mukho@gmail.com sen.swarnendu@gmail.com

Abstract Mondal et al. [8] experimentally studied a bluff body

This paper reports the numerical investigation laminar, two-
dimensional, bluff-body stabilized flames, where the fuel is
injected through the bluff body, perpendicular to the direction
of the free stream flow, i.e. in a cross-flow arrangement. The
combustion is simulated using laminar finite rate chemistry
based model where the skeletal reaction mechanism is
invoked to represent the chemical kinetics. For a particular
injection velocity of methane, both reacting and non-reacting
flows are investigated and the modal decomposition is used to
assess the flow structures in details.
Keywords: vortex shedding; laminar finite rate model;
bluff-body; proper orthogonal decomposition.
I.INTRODUCTION
Bluff body flame stabilizers have important applications and
are installed in practical combustors. The flame is stabilized
by the mixing shear layer formed at the downstream of the
bluff body. However, the flow pattern in the wake is intricate,
and it is identified as one of the classical problems of fluid
mechanics as it has several exciting flow features.
Asymmetrical vortex shedding behind the cylinder is
intensively studied as it is of prime importance in many
applications including bluff body stabilized combustors.
Delhaye et al. [1] simulated the structure and dynamics of a
spatially growing reactive mixing layer. Jeong and Hussain
[2] proposed a definition of a vortex in an incompressible flow
in terms of the eigenvalues of the symmetric tensor. Poszdiech
and Grundmann [3] used the spectral element method for the
calculation of fundamental quantities flow past a circular
cylinder. Wang et al. [4] used POD (Proper Orthogonal
Decomposition) analysis of a wall mounted finite-length
cylinder near the wake. An unstructured collocated grid based
finite volume method based on the primitive variable
formulation to study the flow past a circular cylinder placed
between two parallel walls was studied by Singha and
Sinhamahapatra [5]. Williamson [6] and Zhu et al. [7]
reviewed the dynamics of shed vortices behind a bluff body.
1
stabilized laboratory-scale pulse combustor with fuel
injection from the bluff body. Sen et al. [9] studied the
transient, 2-D laminar flow past a circular cylinder with a
cross and co-counter injection of methane. Bagchi et al. [10]
investigated the flow past a slotted circular cylinder with a
cross injection of methane and compared between reacting
and non-reacting flow. A comparison between a lean and rich
injection was also studied. [11] In the present work, a laminar,
transient flow past a cylindrical bluff body flame stabilizer has
been investigated. The bluff body, i.e. the cylinder has 2 slots
perpendicular to the direction of the flow, 180O apart, from
where methane is injected. The simulations are carried out at
a free stream Reynolds number of 100, and the results are
analyzed for both reacting and non-reacting cases. Fast
Fourier Transform is performed to determine the frequency of
vortex shedding, while POD calculations help to identify the
structures in details.
II. PROBLEM GEOMETRY
A rectangular flow domain (200 mm x 200mm) is
considered and the slotted cylinder is placed centrally
within the flow domain. The diameter of the cylinder is 6
mm and two diametrically opposite slots are placed
perpendicular to the direction of the flow 180º apart. A
schematic of the geometry is presented in Fig. 1. The ratio
of injection velocity to free stream velocity is denoted by
ϵ, and its value for this study is 2 while the free stream
Reynolds number is 100.
Fig. 1: Geometry and boundary conditions
 III. NUMERICAL METHODS AND VALIDATION
A finite volume based CFD code ANSYS Fluent has been
used to perform the required numerical simulations. The
pressure-based solver is chosen as the numerical scheme,
and second order implicit transient solutions are
performed. SIMPLE is used for pressure-velocity
coupling while the momentum is discretized using the
QUICK scheme. A velocity inlet condition is specified at
the inlet, pressure-outlet condition at the outlet and a fixed
wall condition at the two walls to simulate a practical
combustor. Grid independence study along with time step
independence is carried out to select the optimum mesh
and time step for simulation. Finally, the optimum mesh
size of 17,997 nodes 22,328 elements and time step size
of 0.001 are considered for detailed simulations to reduce
the computational time without any considerable loss in
accuracy. The Strouhal number obtained from the
temporally fluctuating lift coefficient at the cylinder
surface has been observed and compared with the present
literature to validate the present model for the non-
reacting flow. A reduced reaction mechanism with 16
species and 46 reactions is used to the model chemistry of
the combustion phenomena [12], while POD is used to
identify the coherent structures responsible for the
physical process.
IV.RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
In this section, we report both the reacting and the non-
reacting flow features for ϵ=2. First, the qualitative study
of the flow dynamics from the z-vorticity contours is
shown in Fig 2 (a) and Fig. 2(b).
disproportionate frequencies illustrate the quasi-periodic
nature of the flow arising from the complex interactions
between the injected jet and the free stream. For reacting
flow, a single dominant frequency of 8.854Hz has been
detected. It is noteworthy that the frequency observed in the
reacting flow is the higher harmonic of the frequency
observed in the non-reacting flow (1.099 Hz). From the
PSD plots and z-vorticity contours, it is apparent that there
is spatial coherence in both the flows. In order to analyze it
in detail, proper orthogonal decomposition is performed.
Fig. 3: Power spectral density plot of CL for both the
flows
The system’s rotational energy is much more critical than its
translational energy for inhomogeneous flows as vorticity is
a better indicator of the dynamics of such a system rather
than velocity [13]. Hence an enstrophy-based POD analysis
is invoked in the present work, instead of an energy-based
POD analysis. To establish the convergence of enstrophy
composition, decomposition using three sets of snapshots
equally spaced in time has been performed for the non-
reacting case. Snapshot independence study is shown in Fig.
4 for N = 100, 150 and 200, where N is the number of
snapshots, which confirms that the discrepancy in the
enstrophy content is marginal, and hence the detailed
analysis is reported using N = 200 only.

(a) (b)

Fig. 2: Z-Vorticity (s-1) contours for (a) non-reacting

and (b) reacting flow
The vortex shedding of both the cases is observed to be
in 2S mode, i.e. 2 single vortices shed per cycle. In the
reacting flow, the vortices are larger and symmetric.
Glimpses of asymmetry have been observed in the non-
reacting flow. In order to get a better understanding of the
difference in flow structures, power spectral density
analysis is performed and reported in Fig. 3. The power Fig. 4: Snapshot independence study
spectral density plots for the temporally fluctuating lift
coefficient is shown with the reacting flow shown in red. The cumulative enstrophy content mirrors how the
For non-reacting flow, multiple dominant frequencies of proportion of the total enstrophy contributions changes as the
1.099Hz, 1.434Hz and 3.983Hz have been observed, neither number of modes is increased. It gives an idea of how many
of which are the harmonics of each other. Such modes are required to create a reduced-order model with

2
acceptable predictive quality. From Fig. 4, the first five values as depicted in Table 1. Figures 5 and 6 exhibits the
modes of both the cases contribute to more contours of 4 modes for both reacting and non-reacting
cases studied herein. Noticeably, the contours depict
different flow features and some of them are associated with
large-scale motion and rest is due to small-scale motion.
The first mode of both the cases shows the boundary layer
separation and can be supposed as the characteristic of mean
motion (not shown in the plot). The vortex shedding appears
(a) Mode 2 (a) Mode 2 to be in 2S mode, similar to that observed in the vorticity
contours for both the flows (Fig. 2). For non-reacting flow,
mode 2 and 4 show the Von Karman vortex shedding having
a single frequency. The structures are mainly symmetric for
modes 2 and 4. From the POD temporal coefficients plot in
Fig. 7, it can be inferred that Mode 4 is a harmonic of mode
2, both having peaks at 4.297Hz, while Mode 5 is a
(b) Mode 3 (b) Mode 3 harmonic of mode 3, having peak frequencies of 5.859Hz,
8.594Hz and 12.11Hz. Such marked irregularities from
symmetry in the flow in modes 3 & 5 can be attributed to
the equivalent energy content of the higher modes, which
induces complications in the flow structures, as is evident
from the multiple frequencies observed in the power
spectral density plots in Fig. 3. It can be inferred that these
(c) Mode 4 (c) Mode 4
frequencies are primarily due to mixing. For the reacting
flow, all the modes show distinct symmetry in the flow. The
vortex shedding is suppressed by combustion. Modes 2 and
3 show the Von Karman vortex shedding having a single
peak frequency of 8.594Hz from the spectra of POD
temporal coefficients (Fig. 8). Modes 4 and 5 show the
(d) Mode 5 (d) Mode 5 presence of short-lived small-scale structures with low
energy content having a negligible contribution to the
Fig. 5: POD modes for Fig. 6: POD modes for overall flow field. A 90º phase shift has been observed
non-reacting flow reacting flow between all the modes for both the flows. Figure 4 suggests
that the first five POD contribute to more than 98% of the
total enstrophy content and that is apparent from the Fig. 9
as well, where the reconstructed flow is almost identical to
the snapshot obtained from the actual flow field. Hence, it
confirms that the first few modes are good enough to
Table 1: Eigenvalues corresponding to first five reproduce the flow field accurately.
dominant POD Modes
Non-reacting flow Reacting flow
0.86387 0.97629
0.08840 0.01802
0.02788 0.00515
0.01178 0.00032
0.00309 0.00015
Fig.7 POD temporal coefficients for non-reacting flow
than 98% of the total enstrophy content (Table 1).
Consequently, a reasonably accurate reduced order model
can be constructed with the first five modes for these ϵ
3

Fig.8: POD temporal coefficients for reacting flow
(a) (b)
Fig. 9: Reconstructed flow field using 5 POD modes
for (a) non-reacting (b) reacting flow
V.CONCLUSIONS
In the present work, simulation of laminar, transient,
incompressible flow has been performed. Methane is injected
from two slots perpendicular to the free stream. Comparisons
have been drawn between a reacting and non-reacting flow for
a particular injection velocity. Vortex shedding pattern has
been observed mainly to be in a 2S mode for both the events.
Some inhibition in vortex shedding has been observed in the
reacting flow. In the non-reacting flow glimpses of
asymmetry has been observed. The vortices are smaller than
those in the reacting case. From the PSD plots, it can be
concluded that the peak frequency observed in the reacting
flow is a higher harmonic of the fundamental frequency in the
non-reacting flow. From the spectra of POD temporal
coefficients of non-reacting flow, Mode 2 and Mode 4 show
single frequency, hence it is basically Von Karman vortex
shedding. Mode 3 and mode 5 shows the asymmetric mixing
and complex interactions. For reacting flow, mode 2 and
mode 3 show the Von Karman shedding, while mode 4 and
mode 5 are super harmonics showing fleeting small-scale
structures with low energy. The peak frequency observed in
POD modes of non-reacting flow showing mixing phenomena
and same frequency observed in reacting flow (8.594Hz) may
lead to the conclusion that the vortex shedding frequency
observed in reacting flow may be primarily due to mixing
only.
4
REFERENCES
[1] Delhaye B., Veynante D., Candel S.M., Minh
H.H., Simulation and modeling of reactive shear layers,
Theor. Comput. Fluid Dynam. 6 (1994), 67–87.
[2] Jeong J., Hussain F., On the identification of a
vortex, J. Fluid Mech. 285 (1995), 69–94
[3] Poszdiech O., Grundmann R. 2007. A systematic
approach to the numerical calculation of fundamental
quantities of the two-dimensional flow over a circular
cylinder, J. Fluids Struct.Vol. 23, 479-499.
[4] Wang H.F., Cao H.L., Zhou Y., 2014, POD
analysis of a finite-length cylinder near wake, Exp.
Fluids, Vol. 55, 1790.
[5] Singha S., Singhamahapatra K.P., 2010, Flow
past a circular cylinder between parallel walls at low
Reynolds numbers, Ocean Engg., 37, 757-769.
[6] Williamson C.H.K., 1996, Vortex dynamics in
the cylinder wake, Annu. Rev. Fluid Mech., 28, 477-539.
[7] Zhu M.M., Zhao P.H.,Ge H.W., Chen Y.L. 2012,
Simulation of vortex shedding behind a bluff body flame
stabilizer using a hybrid U-RANS/PDF method, Acta
Mech. Sin., Vol. 28, 348-358.
[8] Mondal S., Mukhopadhyay A., Sen S., 2014,
Dynamic characterization of a laboratory scale pulse
combustor, Combust. Sci. and Tech., Vol. 186.2: 139-152
[9] Sen U., Mukhopadhyay A., Sen S., 2017, Effects
of fluid injection on dynamics of flow past a circular
cylinder, Eur. J. Mech. B/Fluids., Vol. 61, 187-199.
[10] Bagchi S., Sarkar S., Mukhopadhyay A., Sen S.,
2018, Numerical Simulation of vortex shedding from a
cylindrical bluff body flame stabilizer, Proceedings of
International Conference of Mechanical Engineering,
678-682.
[11] Bagchi S., Sarkar S., Sen U., Mukhopadhyay A.,
Sen S., 2018, Numerical Investigation of Vortex
Shedding from a Bluff Body Stabilised Flame with Cross
Injection, Proceedings of Sustainable Energy and
Environmental Challenges, 23, 250-254.
[12] Smooke M.D., Puri I.K., K,Seshadri, 1986, A
comparison between numerical calculations and
experimental measurements of the structure of a
counterflow diffusion flame burning diluted methane in
diluted air, 21st Symp. (Int.) Combust. /The Combust.
Inst., 1783-1792.
[13] Sengupta T.K., Haider S.I., Parvathi M.K.,
Pallavi G., Enstrophy-based proper orthogonal
decomposition for reduced-order modeling of flow past a
cylinder, Phys. Rev. E, 91 (2015), Article 0433