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This is the accepted version of the paper.This version of the publication may differ from the final published version. Permanent repository link AbstractThe paper describes the results of a comprehensive study of turbulent mixing, fuel spray dispersion and evaporation and combustion in a gas-turbine combustor geometry (the DLR Generic Single Sector Combustor) with the aid of Large Eddy Simulations (LES). An Eulerian description of the continuous phase is adopted and is coupled with a Lagrangian formulation of the dispersed phase. The sub-grid scale (sgs) probability density function approach in conjunction with the stochastic fields solution method is used to account for sgs turbulencechemistry interactions. Stochastic models are used to represent the influence of sgs fluctuations on droplet dispersion and evaporation. Two different test cases are simulated involving reacting and non-reacting conditions. The simulations of the underlying flow field are satisfying in terms of mean statistics and the structure of the flame is captured accurately. Detailed spray simulations are also presented and compared with measurements where the fuel spray model is shown to reproduce the measured SMD and velocity of the droplets accurately.

Two principal methods have been used to simulate the evolution of two-phase immiscible flows of liquid and gas separated by an interface. These are the Level-Set (LS) method and the Volume of Fluid (VoF) method. Both methods attempt to represent the very sharp interface between the phases and to deal with the large jumps in physical properties associated with it. Both methods have their own strengths and weaknesses. For example, the VoF method is known to be prone to excessive numerical diffusion, while the basic LS method has some difficulty in conserving mass. Major progress has been made in remedying these deficiencies, and both methods have now reached a high level of physical accuracy. Nevertheless, there remains an issue, in that each of these methods has been developed by different research groups, using different codes and most importantly the implementations have been fine tuned to tackle different applications. Thus, it remains unclear what are the remaining advantages and drawbacks of each method relative to the other, and what might be the optimal way to unify them. In this paper, we address this gap by performing a direct comparison of two current state-of-the-art variations of these methods (LS: RCLSFoam and VoF: interPore) and implemented in the same code (OpenFoam). We subject both methods to a pair of benchmark test cases while using the same numerical meshes to examine a) the accuracy of curvature representation, b) the effect of tuning parameters, c) the ability to minimise spurious velocities and d) the ability to tackle fluids with very different densities. For each method, one of the test cases is chosen to be fairly benign while the other test case is expected to present a greater challenge. The results indicate that both methods can be made to work well on both test cases, while displaying different sensitivity to the relevant parameters.

This is the accepted version of the paper.This version of the publication may differ from the final published version. Abstract: A stochastic implementation of the Multiple Mapping Conditioning (MMC) approach has been applied to a turbulent jet diffusion flame (Sandia Flame D). This implementation combines the advantages of the basic concepts of a mapping closure methodology with a probability density approach. A single reference variable has been chosen. Its evolution is described by a Markov process and then mapped to the mixture fraction space. Scalar micro-mixing is modelled by a modified ``interaction by exchange with the mean'' (IEM) mixing model where the particles mix with their -in reference space-conditionally averaged means. The formulation of the closure leads to localness of mixing in mixture fraction space and consequently improved localness in composition space. Results for mixture fraction and reactive species are in good agreement with the experimental data. The MMC methodology allows for the introduction of an additional ``minor dissipation time scale'' that controls the fluctuations around the conditional mean. A sensitivity analysis based on the conditional temperature fluctuations as a function of this time scale does not endorse earlier estimates for its modelling, but only relatively large dissipation time scales of the order of the integral turbulence time scale yield acceptable levels of conditional fluctuations that agree with experiments. With the choice of a suitable dissipation time scale, MMC-IEM thus provides a simple mixing model that is capable of capturing extinction phenomena, and it gives improved predictions over conventional PDF predictions using simple IEM mixing models. turing extinction phenomena, and it gives improved predictions over conventional PDF predictions using simple IEM mixing models. Permanent repository link Stochastic Multiple Mapping

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The work presents a numerical investigation of gasoline direct injection and the resulting early development of spray plumes from an eight-hole injector (Engine Combustion Network Spray G). The objective is to evaluate the impact on the droplet size distribution (DSD) statistics from the assumed model physics, particularly for the small scales. Two modelling approaches are compared: Eulerian–Lagrangian spray atomisation with adaptive mesh refinement and a stochastic fields transported probability density function method. The two models simulate the small scales and sub-grid droplet physics with different approaches, but based on the same concept of transport of liquid surface density. Both approaches predict similar liquid distributions in the near-field comparable to experimental measurements. The spray break-up patterns are very similar and both models reproduce quasi-log-normal droplet distributions, with same overall Sauter mean diameters. The Eulerian–Lagrangian spray atomisation with probability density function approach shows different break-up behaviour between droplets originating from the dilute region and those originating from the dense core region. The transition from Eulerian to Lagrangian can be observed in the Eulerian–Lagrangian spray atomisation with adaptive mesh refinement predicted distribution with an abrupt change in the DSD. Both methods are able to produce similar DSD below filter width/grid size resolution.

In this study, a combined experimental and Large Eddy Simulation (LES) investigation is performed to identify the vortical structures, their dynamics, and interaction with a turbulent premixed flame in a swirl-stabilized combustor. Our non-reacting flow experiment shows the existence of large scale precessing motion, commonly observed for such flows. This off-axis precessing dynamics disappears with combustion but only above a critical equivalence ratio at which the flame attaches to the swirler centerbody and vortex breakdown changes from a cone to a bubble type. For compact flames stabilized along the inner shear layer (ISL), no precessing is seen, but large scale vortices along the ISL are observed; these structures interact with the ISL-stabilized flame and contribute to its wrinkling as revealed by laser-induced fluorescence data. After validating the LES results in terms of low order statistics and point temperature measurements in relevant areas of the flow, we show that it can capture the precessing motion in the non-reacting flow and its suppression with combustion. The simulations show that the ISL vortices in the reacting case originate from a vortex core that is formed at the swirler's centerbody. This vortex core has a conical helical shape that interacts-as it winds outwith the ISL and the flame stabilized along it. The simulated helical vortex core (HVC) exists in both reacting and non-reacting flows; in the latter, it is dominated by the offaxis motion, whereas in the reacting case, that motion is damped and only remains the corkscrew type solid body rotation of the HVC.