Combustion Science and Technology, Vol.158, 407-438, 2000
Numerical simulation of soot formation in a turbulent flame with a Monte-Carlo PDF approach and detailed chemistry
The paper presents an original work in which a hybrid turbulent combustion model, based upon a stochastic evaluation of the Joint Scalar Probability Density Function (PDF), is used in conjunction with a skeletal soot model and a detailed kinetic mechanism for fuel oxidation. First, the Probabilistic Eulerian Lagrangian turbulent combustion model, which is theoretically able to describe chemical reactions occurring in a turbulent flow for a wide range of Damkohler numbers, is presented and justified. Then, the chemistry model which accounts fur soot formation and oxidation is exposed and validated in rich ethylene premixed laminar flames. This modelling approach coupling turbulence and chemistry is eventually applied to predict soot levels in a turbulent jet diffusion flame of ethylene burning in still air. Results are in good agreement with experimental data and the peak value of soot volume fraction on the centreline is fairly well described even though an accurate radiative heat transfer model is still necessary to be more predictive on mean temperature levels.