A numerical investigation of the interaction between a spray flame and an acoustic forcing of the velocity field is presented in this paper. The test-case which is the focus of this work is a non-confined flame1,2 burning at atmospheric pressure and therefore the velocity fluctuations play a key role. Acoustic waves will eventually affect the rate of combustion, and the oscillating fluctuation of the heat released by the flame might be increased by the evaporation process. The dynamic interaction between the evaporating fuel spray and the velocity fluctuations induced by an acoustic perturbation is investigated to understand the impact of the acoustic waves on the droplet dispersion and on the evaporation rate. The influence of the initial droplet diameter has been observed to be irrelevant, when two monodispersed sprays of 20 μm and 80 μm were numerically simulated. In this work the main question to address is how the interphase heat and mass transfer, and the momentum exchange are influenced, at low amplitude velocity fluctuations, by the forcing frequency, under two different imposed velocity profiles of the liquid fuel. A fast decay of the slip velocity is predicted under both steady and perturbed conditions. Thus, slip velocity fluctuations do not have a significant influence on the solved spray field. Finally, the impact of the forcing frequency and of the pilot are the main effects acting on the forced flame response. At low frequency, the entrainment of hot gases into the spray results in a clearly visible stretching of the flame which causes a high level of temperature fluctuation. At high frequency, despite the weak response of the gas velocity field, the dynamics of the combustion show a faster evaporation rate than the acoustic–free case.
A numerical investigation of the interaction between a spray flame and an acoustic forcing of the velocity field is presented in this paper. In combustion systems, a thermoacoustic instability is the result of a process of coupling between oscillations in heat released and acoustic waves. When liquid fuels are used, the atomisation and the evaporation process also undergo the effects of such instabilities, and the computational fluid dynamics of these complex phenomena becomes a challenging task. In this paper, an acoustic perturbation is applied to the mass flow of the gas phase at the inlet and its effect on the evaporating fuel spray and on the flame front is investigated with unsteady Reynolds averaged Navier-Stokes numerical simulations. Two flames are simulated: a partially premixed ethanol/air spray flame and a premixed pre-vaporised ethanol/air flame, with and without acoustic forcing. The frequencies used to perturb the flames are 200 and 2500 Hz, which are representative for two different regimes. Those regimes are classified based on the Strouhal number St = (D/U)f f : at 200 Hz, St = 0.07, and at 2500 Hz, St = 0.8. The exposure of the flame to a 200 Hz signal results in a stretching of the flame which causes gas field fluctuations, a delay of the evaporation and an increase of the reaction rate. The coupling between the flame and the flow excitation is such that the flame breaks up periodically. At 2500 Hz, the evaporation rate increases but the response of the gas field is weak and the flame is more stable. The presence of droplets does not play a crucial role at 2500 Hz, as shown by a comparison of the discrete flame function in the case of spray and pre-vaporised flame. At low Strouhal number, the forced response of the pre-vaporised flame is much higher compared to that of the spray flame.
Ethanol is a bio-fuel widely used in engines as a fuel or fuel additive. It is, in particular, attractive because it can be easily produced in high quality from renewable resources. Its properties are of interest in many fields, such as gas turbines applications as well as fuel cells. In the past decades, research in chemistry and engineering has put a lot of effort into a better understanding of its gas-phase chemical kinetic properties during combustion processes. This work describes a methodology to define an optimal expression of the reaction progress variable in the context of tabulated chemistry in laminar premixed combustion. The choice of the reaction progress variable is based on the investigation of the wide range of consumption rates of the species involved in the reaction. Two methods are used: the computational singular perturbation method and a sensitivity analysis of the time scales evaluated with a perfectly stirred reactor. The thermochemical databases computed with these techniques are compared in the cases of a freely propagating flame and a Bunsen flame, in the laminar premixed regime and under stoichiometric conditions. The influence of the chemical kinetics on the laminar flame speed is estimated from the results of the freely propagating flame. The case where the differences in the performance between the databases become more pronounced is the Bunsen flame, where some databases lead to a premature ignition prediction of the flame. ARTICLE HISTORY
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