Reduced-order models of flame dynamics can be used to predict and mitigate the emergence of thermoacoustic oscillations in the design of gas turbine and rocket engines. This process is hindered by the fact that these models, although often qualitatively correct, are not usually quantitatively accurate. As automated experiments and numerical simulations produce ever-increasing quantities of data, the question arises as to how this data can be assimilated into physics-informed reduced-order models in order to render these models quantitatively accurate. In this study, we develop and test a physics-based reduced-order model of a ducted premixed flame in which the model parameters are learned from high speed videos of the flame. The experimental data is assimilated into a level-set solver using an ensemble Kalman filter. This leads to an optimally calibrated reduced-order model with quantified uncertainties, which accurately reproduces elaborate nonlinear features such as cusp formation and pinch-off. The reduced-order model continues to match the experiments after assimilation has been switched off. Further, the parameters of the model, which are extracted automatically, are shown to match the first order behavior expected on physical grounds. This study shows how reduced-order models can be updated rapidly whenever new experimental or numerical data becomes available, without the data itself having to be stored.
The effect of swirl, premixedness and geometry has been investigated for hydrogen enriched premixed flame using Large Eddy Simulation (LES) with a Thickened Flame (TF) model. Swirl strength has been varied to study the effects of swirl on flame behavior in a laboratory-scale premixed combustor operated under atmospheric conditions. In addition, the levels of premixedness and geometry have also been changed to study the role of these quantities on flame behavior. The turbulent flow field and the chemistry are coupled through TF model. In the LES-TF approach, the flame front is resolved on the c…
Diffusive transport of mass occurs at small scales in turbulent premixed flames. As a result, multicomponent mass diffusion, which is often neglected in direct numerical simulations (DNS) of premixed combustion, has the potential to impact both turbulence and flame characteristics at small scales. In this study, we evaluate these impacts by examining enstrophy dynamics and the internal structure of the flame for lean premixed hydrogen-air combustion, neglecting secondary Soret and Dufour effects. We performed three-dimensional DNS of these flames by implementing the Stefan-Maxwell equations in…
Premixed turbulent flames, encountered in power generation and propulsion engines, are an archetype of a randomly advected, self-propagating surface. While such a flame is known to exhibit large-scale intermittent flapping, the possible intermittency of its small-scale fluctuations has been largely disregarded. Here, we experimentally reveal the inner intermittency of a premixed turbulent V-flame, while clearly distinguishing this small-scale feature from large-scale outer intermittency. From temporal measurements of the fluctuations of the flame, we find a frequency spectrum that has a power-…
Comprehensive knowledge of local flame displacement speed, $S_d$, in turbulent premixed flames is crucial towards the design and development of hydrogen fuelled next-generation engines. Premixed hydrogen-air flames are characterized by significantly higher laminar flame speed compared to other conventional fuels. Furthermore, in the presence of turbulence, $S_d$ is enhanced much beyond its corresponding unstretched, planar laminar value $S_L$. In this study, the effect of high Karlovitz number ($Ka$) turbulence on density-weighted flame displacement speed, $\widetilde{S_d}$, in a H$_2$-air fla…
Premixed flames propagating in horizontal tubes are observed to take on shape convex towards the fresh mixture, which is commonly explained as a buoyancy effect. A recent rigorous analysis has shown, on the contrary, that this process is driven by the balance of vorticity generated by a curved flame front with the baroclinic vorticity, and predicted existence of a regime in which the leading edge of the flame front is concave. We report first experimental realization of this regime. Our experiments on ethane and n-butane mixtures with air show that flames with an inflection point on the front …
An unconfined strongly swirled flow is investigated to study the effect of hydrogen addition on upstream flame propagation in a methane-air premixed flame using Large Eddy Simulation (LES) with a Thickened Flame (TF) model. A laboratory-scale swirled premixed combustor operated under atmospheric conditions for which experimental data for validation is available has been chosen for the numerical study. In the LES-TF approach, the flame front is resolved on the computational grid through artificial thickening and the individual species transport equations are directly solved with the reaction ra…
Given the need to develop zero-carbon combustors for power and aircraft engine applications, $S_d$ of a turbulent premixed flame, especially for H$_2$-air, is of immediate interest. The present study investigates 3D DNS cases of premixed H$_2$-air turbulent flames at varied pressures for different $Re_t$ and $Ka$ with detailed chemistry to theoretically model $S_d$ at negative curvatures. Prior studies at atmospheric pressure showed $\widetilde{S_d}$ to be enhanced significantly over $S_L$ at large negative $κ$ due to flame-flame interactions. 1D simulations of an imploding cylindrical H$_2$-a…
Laminar premixed flame profiles of methane/air free flames and strained flames at different fuel/air ratios and strain rates are analysed using detailed chemistry with Lewis numbers equal to one. It is shown that the detailed chemistry flame profiles of progress variables CO2+CO and H2O+H2 in canonically stretched coordinates can be fitted accurately by a slight generalization of recently proposed analytical presumed flame profiles over a wide range of fuel/air ratios through adaptation of a single model parameter. Strained flame profiles can be reproduced using an additional linear coordinate…
A combined experimental and numerical investigation of partially premixed laminar methane-air flames undergoing side-wall quenching (SWQ) is performed. A well-established SWQ burner is adapted to allow the seeding of the main flow with additional gaseous products issued from a (secondary) wall inlet close to the flame's quenching point. First, the characteristics of the partially premixed flame that quenches at the wall are assessed using planar laser-induced fluorescence measurements of the OH radical, and a corresponding numerical simulation with fully-resolved transport and chemistry is con…
A modified Thickened Flame (TF) model based on Large Eddy Simulation methodology is used to investigate premixed combustion and the model predictions are evaluated by comparing with the piloted premixed stoichiometric methane-air flame data (Chen et al., 1996) for Reynolds numbers Re = 24,000 (flame F3) and Re=52,000 (flame F1). The basic idea of Thickened-Flame approach is that the flame front is artificially thickened to resolve on the computational LES grid while keeping the laminar flame speed ( ) constant. The artificially thickening of the flame front is obtained by enhancing the molecul…
A Thickened Flame (TF) modeling approach is combined with a Large Eddy Simulation (LES) methodology to model premixed combustion and the accuracy of these model predictions is evaluated by comparing with the piloted premixed stoichiometric methane-air flame data of Chen et al. [Combust. Flame 107 (1996) 233-244] at a Reynolds number Re = 24,000. In the TF model, the flame front is artificially thickened to resolve it on the computational LES grid and the reaction rates are specified using reduced chemistry. The response of the thickened flame to turbulence is taken care of by incorporating an …
Implementing multicomponent diffusion models in numerical combustion studies is computationally expensive; to reduce cost, numerical simulations commonly use mixture-averaged diffusion treatments or simpler models. However, the accuracy and appropriateness of mixture-averaged diffusion has not been verified for three-dimensional, turbulent, premixed flames. In this study we evaluated the role of multicomponent mass diffusion in premixed, three-dimensional high Karlovitz-number hydrogen, n-heptane, and toluene flames, representing a range of fuel Lewis numbers. We also studied a premixed, unsta…
Turbulent mixing is a physical process of fundamental importance in high-speed premixed flames. This mixing results in enhanced transport of temperature and chemical scalars, leading to potentially large changes in flame structure and dynamics. To understand turbulent mixing in non-reacting flows, a number of classical theories have been proposed to describe the scaling and statistics of dispersing fluid particle pairs, including predictions of the effective, or turbulent, eddy diffusivity. Here we examine the validity of these classical theories through the study of fluid particle pair disper…
A new optical technique based on light-matter interaction is devised in-house to detect thermo-acoustic disturbances generated after ignition and during propagation of a premixed flame front in a half open channel. The technique involves passing a polarized laser light through a medium whose density or refractive index varies due to the passage of acoustic waves and/or flame front and then capturing the leaked depolarised light through an analyser by a photo-detector. The technique is applied to combustor involving premixed flame propagation and tulip inversion. The thermo-acoustic signals and…
The fractal scaling properties of turbulent premixed flame fronts have been investigated and considered for modelling sub-grid scales in the Large-Eddy-Simulation framework. Since the width of such thin reaction fronts cannot be resolved into the coarse mesh of LES, the extent of wrinkled flame surface contained in a volume is taken into account. The amount of unresolved flame front is estimated via the "wrinkling facto" that depends on the definition of a suitable fractal dimension and the scale at which the fractal scaling is lost, the inner cut-off length εi. In this context, the present st…
This study aims to build a theoretical model to describe the ignition process of spherical spray flame laden with fuel droplets under overall fuel-lean condition. Two characteristic fronts are introduced to reveal where the evaporation starts and ends in the ignition process. The results demonstrate that the flame has been strengthened with extra fuel droplet adding while the minimum ignition energy (MIE) is decreased. The evolution of the two evaporation fronts in the flame kernel and propagating branches has also be revealed coupled with the evaporation zone length.
In turbulent premixed flames, the fractal dimension of flame iso-surface is argued to be $\mathbb{D}=7/3$ for Damköhler's large-scale limit $(Da>>1)$ and $\mathbb{D}=8/3$ for Damköhler's small-scale limit $(Da\sim\mathcal{O}(1))$ based on heuristic scaling arguments. However, such scaling arguments do not consider the effect of the multifractal nature of turbulent kinetic energy dissipation on the flame surface. In this paper, we account for the effects of multifractal dissipation on the fractal dimension of low $Da$ turbulent premixed flames. We derive two corrections to the upper-limit of fr…
A new premixed turbulent combustion model is proposed. It is based on one-dimensional (1D) filtering of density times progress variable and of the reaction source term of laminar premixed flame profiles using a filter kernel which reflects the variation of the slicing area of planar flame fronts as they move through multidimensional filter volumes. It is shown that these multidimensional effects qualitatively change the relation between the filtered reaction source term and the Favre-filtered reaction progress variable compared to 1D filtering, particularly at large filter widths. Analytical r…
There have been many experimental investigations into the ability of electric fields to enhance combustion by acting upon ion species present in flames [1]. In this work, we examine this phenomenon using a one-dimensional model of a lean premixed flame under the influence of a longitudinal electric field. We expand upon prior two-step chain-branching reaction laminar models with reactions to model the creation and consumption of both a positively-charged radical species and free electrons. Also included are the electromotive force in the conservation equation for ion species and the electrosta…
Steady propagation of premixed flames in straight channels is studied numerically using the on-shell approach. A first numerical algorithm for solving the system of nonlinear integro-differential on-shell equations is presented. It is based on fixed-point iterations and uses simple (Picard) iterations or the Anderson acceleration method that facilitates separation of different solutions. Using these techniques, we scan the parameter space of the problem so as to study various effects governing formation of curved flames. These include the thermal gas expansion and the finite-front-thickness ef…
Analytical treatment of premixed flame propagation in vertical tubes with smooth walls is given. Using the on-shell flame description, equations describing quasi-steady flame with a small but finite front thickness are obtained and solved numerically. It is found that near the limits of inflammability, solutions describing upward flame propagation come in pairs having close propagation speeds, and that the effect of gravity is to reverse the burnt gas velocity profile generated by the flame. On the basis of these results, a theory of partial flame propagation driven by the gravitational field …
Although the evolution of premixed flames in turbulence has been frequently studied, it is not well understood how small flames interact with large-scale turbulent flow motion. Since this question is of practical importance for the occurrence of cycle-to-cycle variations in spark ignition engines, the objective of the present work is to fundamentally differentiate early flame kernel development from well-established turbulent flame configurations. For this purpose, a DNS database consisting of three flames propagating in homogeneous isotropic turbulence (Falkenstein et al., Combust. Flame, 201…
A purely data-driven approach using deep convolutional neural networks is discussed in the context of Large Eddy Simulation (LES) of turbulent premixed flames. The assessment of the method is conducted a priori using direct numerical simulation data. The network has been trained to perform deconvolution on the filtered density and the filtered density- progress variable product, and by doing so obtain estimates of the un-filtered progress variable field. Any non-linear function of the progress variable can then be approximated on the LES coarse mesh and explicitly filtered to advance the LES s…
Premixed flames propagating within small channels show complex combustion phenomena that differ from flame propagation at conventional scales. Available experimental and numerical studies have documented stationary/non-stationary and/or asymmetric modes that depend on properties of the incoming reactant flow as well as channel geometry and wall temperatures. The present work seeks to illuminate mechanisms leading to symmetry-breaking and limit cycle behavior that are fundamental to these combustion modes. Specifically, four cases of lean premixed methane/air combustion -- two equivalence ratio…
Reported in the paper are results of unsteady three-dimensional direct numerical simulations of laminar and turbulent, lean hydrogen-air, complex-chemistry flames propagating in forced turbulence in a box. To explore the eventual influence of thermo-diffusive instability of laminar flames on turbulent burning velocity, (i) a critical length scale Λn that bounds regimes of unstable and stable laminar combustion is numerically determined by gradually decreasing the width Λ of computational domain until a stable laminar flame is obtained and (ii) simulations of turbulent flames are performed by v…
In this contribution, velocity and its dissipation spectra in turbulent non-premixed jet flames are investigated by using two Direct Numerical Simulation (DNS) databases of temporally evolving jets with different bulk jet Reynolds numbers. In the DNS differential diffusion and flame dynamics effects have been accounted for and the flames experience high levels of extinction followed by re-ignition. It turns out that the spectra extracted from different statistically homogeneous planes across the jets and selected times corresponding to various occurring flame regimes (extinction and re-ignitio…
This study investigates the effects of curvature on the local heat release rate and mixture fraction during turbulent flame-wall interaction of a lean dimethyl ether/air flame using a fully resolved simulation with a reduced skeletal chemical reaction mechanism and mixture-averaged transport. The region in which turbulent flame-wall interaction affects the flame is found to be restricted to a wall distance less than twice the laminar flame thickness. In regions without heat losses, heat release rate and curvature, as well as mixture fraction and curvature, are negatively correlated, which is i…
This paper presents an experimental analysis of flame-induced enstrophy transport in premixed swirl combustion at Karlovitz numbers between 20-50. Such flames posses a large-scale pressure field that -- in addition to the pressure fields associated with small-scale turbulent vortices -- can interact with density gradients to produce baroclinic torque. Simultaneous tomographic particle image velocimetry and formaldehyde planar laser induced fluorescence measurements are used to obtain high-resolution velocity and progress-variable fields. This allows statistical evaluation of the various terms …
The response to small perturbations of the Sandia CH4/air flame series is studied using a dynamical systems formula- tion. Here, the Sandia D and E turbulent partially-premixed flames are computed using large eddy simulation (LES) with a flamelet/progress variable approach. Using 300 simultaneous LES computations of each flame, the partial Lyapunov spectrum of the flow is obtained, which provides a set of Lyapunov exponents (LEs) and Lyapunov vectors (LVs). Special numerical procedures to handle such large data sets and perform matrix manipulations on-the-fly are discussed. From the LEs, the d…
We investigate and model pressure effects on the turbulent burning velocity over a wide range of pressures and turbulence intensities with the direct numerical simulation (DNS) of statistically planar turbulent premixed flames for lean hydrogen/air mixture. DNS results indicate that the stretch factor has an impact on the turbulent burning velocity and flame surface area at elevated pressures. In particular, the enhanced stretch factor at high pressures increases the ratio of turbulent and laminar burning velocities, diminishing the "bending" effect. Based on a good consistency between turbule…
Direct Numerical Simulation data obtained earlier from two statistically 1D, planar, fully-developed, weakly turbulent, single-step-chemistry, premixed flames characterized by two significantly different (7.53 and 2.50) density ratios σ are analyzed to explore the influence of combustion-induced thermal expansion on the turbulence and the backward influence of such flow perturbations on the reaction-zone surface. For this purpose, the simulated velocity fields are decomposed into solenoidal and potential velocity subfields. The approach is justified by the fact that results obtained adopting (…
