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Combustion models for CFD refers to combustion models for computational fluid
dynamics. Combustion is defined as a chemical reaction in which a hydrocarbon fuel
reacts with an oxidant to form products, accompanied with the release of energy in
the form of heat. Being the integral part of various engineering applications
like: internal combustion engines, aircraft engines, rocket engines, furnaces,
and power station combustors, combustion manifests itself as a wide domain during
the design, analysis and performance characteristics stages of the above-mentioned
applications. With the added complexity of chemical kinetics and achieving reacting
flow mixture environment, proper modeling physics has to be incorporated
during computational fluid dynamic (CFD) simulations of combustion. Hence the
following discussion presents a general outline of the various adequate models
incorporated with the Computational fluid dynamic code to model the process of
combustion.
Todays combustion system design objectives focus on efficiency, pollutant emissions, and fuel
flexibility. Combustion simulation can be a valuable aid to designers in meeting their goals but
only if the results of their modeling can give true insight into their engines behavior. Obtaining
accurate results from combustion simulation requires the capture of both the physical and
chemical characteristics that can change radically over a complete engine duty cycle. In an
internal combustion engine, for example, spray breakup and evaporation, turbulence, ignition
delay and flame propagation are all factors that must be modeled accurately to yield meaningful
results. Inaccuracies can sometimes be overcome by a substantial amount of tuning or
calibration of the simulation models, but the cost of calibration is usually significant and the
resulting calibrations are typically not transferable over the course of a designs evolution.
Thanks to massively parallel computers, engine geometries can now be represented with
amazing detail using computational meshes in CFD that approach 100 million cells. Advanced
turbulence modeling in CFD provides better simulation of turbulence-chemistry interactions,
albeit with severely reduced chemistry. But because the chemistry solver technology included
with most CFD packages is slow relative to the flow calculations, it is common for engineers to
use single-component, severely reduced fuel models (or mechanisms) in their combustion
simulations. These severely reduced fuel models lack the detail that is required to accurately
predict key engine performance factors such as ignition delay, flame propagation, NOx, CO and
PM (soot) emissions. Through the work of the Model Fuels Consortium (MFC), it was clearly
shown that the use of severely reduced fuel models can compromise the accuracy of important
parameters in a simulation.
In the figure below, the results of a simulation using a 34-species n-heptane fuel model that is
commonly used to model diesel combustion are shown. This fuel model was extensively tuned
to provide reasonable accuracy in standard diesel engine designs. However, it fails to accurately
predict trends for important combustion and emissions performance when compared to actual
engine measurements for high EGR cases. The more accurate 174 species mechanism is able
to accurately capture ignition and heat release for the high EGR cases.
coefficients of all species are equal. Owing to this additional assumption the model only solves
one extra partial differential equation for mixture fraction and after solving the transport equation
for the mixture fraction the corresponding mass fractions for fuel and oxidant are calculated.
This model can very well be applied to a combustion environment where laminar diffusion
effects are dominant and the combustion proceeds via non premixed fuel and oxidant streams
diffusing into each other giving rise to a laminar flame.
This model is used when turbulent mixing of the constituents has to be taken into consideration.
The k/ turbulent time scale is used to calculate the reaction rate. A comparison between the
turbulent dissipation rates of the fuel, oxidant and products is done and the minimum amongst
all is taken as the rate of the reaction. The transport equations for the mass fractions of the
constituents are solved using this rate of reaction. Apart from this a mean enthalpy equation is
also solved and temperature, density and viscosity are calculated accordingly. The model can
also be implemented when finite rate kinetically controlled reaction is to be simulated. In such
situation while deciding the rate of the reaction the Arrhenius kinetic rate expression is also
taken into account and the rate of reaction is taken as minimum amongst the turbulent
dissipation rates of all the constituents and the Arrhenius kinetic rate expression. Since turbulent
mixing governs the characteristics of this model, there exists a limit to the quality of the
combustion simulation depending upon the type of the turbulent model implemented to
represent the flow. The model can also be modified to account for mixing of fine structures
during the turbulent reaction. This modification of the model results in the eddy dissipation
model which consider the mass fraction of fine structures in its calculations.