A new coupling method for simulating combustion processes

Using DEISA research infrastructure the researchers have developed a new method for simulating combustion processes that will have a real and practical impact on a number of industrial applications.

Combustion is involved in more than 80% of primary energy conversion processes worldwide. It is used, for example, in aeronautical and ground transportation, waste incineration and in various other industries in which burners and engines are required.

Optimization of burners has led to increased levels of complexity and design innovation. This very complexity increases the likelihood that the burners will malfunction, for example through combustion instabilities. Because the developments of industrial burner prototypes can be very expensive, numerical simulation of combustion processes has become compulsory.

Various different methods exist for performing these simulations. The most recent is called Large Eddy Simulation (LES), and can be viewed as an intermediate technique between direct numerical simulation and classical modelization. Under this approach, larger turbulent motions of the flow field are explicitly computed and resolved, whereas the effects of the smaller ones are only modelled.

To gain a better insight into the full process, the researchers of the FOCUS group have developed an original approach. This proposed approach takes advantage of an efficient coupling between an LES solver and codes devoted to radiative heat transfers, where data exchanges occur at time intervals controlled by the physical times of each phenomenon.

“This project is innovative both from a theoretical point of view and in terms of the numerical aspects, with the development of new models in state-of-the-art simulations”, says Olivier Gicquel, a researcher at the EM2C laboratory and one of the leaders of the FOCUS project.

Numerical simulations of turbulent reacting flows including pollutant formation and radiative heat transfers require not only well-adapted models, but also large computational resources. Research infrastructures like DEISA are therefore very much needed in this area.

More information on the FOCUS project available at http://www.deisa.org/press/FOCUS.pdf