Towards numerical simulation of turbulent hydrogen combustion based on flamelet generated manifolds in OpenFOAM

This work proposes an application of the Flamelet-Generated Manifolds (FGM) technique in the OpenFOAM environment. FGM is a chemical reduced method for combustion modeling. This technique treats the combustion process as the solution of a small amount of controlling variables. Regarding laminar simulation, a progress variable and enthalpy evolution can describe satisfactorily the problem. From a turbulent point of view, FGM can be applied to LES and RANS simulations, where the subgrid chemical terms are described with a beta - PDF approach. These approaches apply satisfactorily in relatively simple gases, nevertheless for hydrogen are not more valid, due to preferential diffusion effects and instability of the flame structure. The overall aim of this research is to find technical solution for hydrogen gas turbines design in the next generation of Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle (IGCC) plants