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The dynamics of a swirl-stabilized premixed flame is studied using large eddy simulation (LES). A filtered flamelet model is used to account for the subgrid combustion. The model provides a consistent and robust reaction-diffusion expression for simulating the propagation of turbulent premixed flames correctly. The numerical results were found to be relatively insensitive to small changes in the inflow boundary conditions and to the numerical mesh employed. Furthermore, the results were found to agree well with the available experimental data both for velocity and scalar fields. In addition, unsteady flame features [i.e., precessing vortex core (PVC)] were identified and compared with experimental data. The agreement between LES results and experimental data, in terms of flame dynamics, was also good. Increasing swirl did not affect the flame strongly but a decrease of swirl number was shown to change the flame shape and suppress the PVC. The PVC and flame dynamics were studied using proper orthogonal decomposition (POD) allowing us to identify and isolate the PVC from smaller-scale turbulence. The POD results indicate that the PVC corresponds to a helical wave consisting of two counter-rotating helices. A dynamical reduced model was also derived do describe the flame response to the PVC.

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SUMMARYA numerical and an experimental study of the flow of an incompressible fluid in a polar cavity is presented. The experiments included flow visualization, in two perpendicular planes, and quantitative measurements of the velocity field by a laser Doppler anemometer. Measurements were done for two ranges of Reynolds numbers; about 60 and about 350. The stream function-vorticity form of the governing equations was approximated by upwind or central finite-differences. Both types of finite-difference approximations were solved by a multi-grid method. Numerical solutions were computed on a sequence of grids and the relative accuracy of the solutions was studied. Our most accurate numerical solutions had an estimated error of 0 1 per cent and 1 per cent for Re = 60 and Re = 350, respectively. It was also noted that the solution to the second order finite difference equations was more accurate, compared to the solution to the first order equations, only if fine enough meshes were used. The possibility of using extrapolations to improve accuracy was also considered. Extrapolated solutions were found to be valid only if solutions computed on fine enough meshes were used. The numerical and the experimental results were found to be in very good agreement.