LARGE EDDY SIMULATIONS OF BUOYANT PLUMES-

An approach to the study of gas phase combustion and convection processes in fires using a combination of mathematical analysis and computer simulation is presented. It seeks to solve the governing equations directly (if approximately) by decomposing the fire into a large scale convective and radiative transport problem coupled to a small scale model of combustion and radiative emission. The combustion model assumes that all of the thermodynamic properties of the fluid are tied to the local mixture fraction, which is convected by the large scale motion, which in turn is driven by the heat released by the combustion processes. The large scale flow is studied using finhe difference techniques to solve large eddy simulations of the Navier-Stokes equations, As a first test of the numerical approach a buoyant helium plume k simulated and results compared to a companion laboratory experiment