Numerical studies of turbulent flames in wall-jet flows

The present thesis deals with the fundamental aspects of turbulent mixing and non-premixed combustion in the wall-jet flow, which has a close resemblance to many industrial applications. Direct numerical simulations (DNS) of turbulent wall-jets with isothermal and exothermic reactions are performed. In the computational domain, fuel and oxidizer enter separately in a nonpremixed manner and the flow is compressible, fully turbulent and subsonic. The triple “turbulence-chemistry-wall” interactions in the wall-jet flow have been addressed first by focusing on turbulent flow effects on the isothermal reaction, and then, by concentrating on heat-release effects on both turbulence and flame characteristics in the exothermic reaction. In the former, the mixing characteristics of the flow, the key statistics for combustion and the near-wall effects in the absence of thermal effects are isolated and studied. In the latter, the main target was to identify the heat-release effects on the different mixing scales of turbulence. Key statistics such as the scalar dissipation rates, time scale ratios, two-point correlations, one and two-dimensional premultiplied spectra are used to illustrate the heat release induced modifications. Finer small mixing scales were observed in the isothermal simulations and larger vortical structures formed after adding significant amounts of heat-release. A deeper insight into the heat release effects on three-dimensional mixing and reaction characteristics of the turbulent wall-jet flow has been gained by digging in different scales of DNS datasets. In particular, attention has been paid to the anisotropy levels and intermittency of the flow by investigating the probability density functions, higher order moments of velocities and reacting scalars and anisotropy invariant maps for different reacting cases. To evaluate and isolate the Damkohler number effects on the reaction zone structure from those of the heat release a comparison between two DNS cases with different Damkohler numbers but a comparable temperature rise is performed. Furthermore, the wall effects on the flame and flow characteristics, for instance, the wall heat transfer; the near-wall combustion effects on the skin-friction, the isothermal wall cooling effects on the average burning rates and the possibility of formation of the premixed mode within the non-premixed flame are addressed. The DNS datasets are also used for a priori analysis, focused on the heat release effects on the subgrid-scale (SGS) statistics. The findings regarding the turbulence small-scale characteristics, gained through the statistical analysis of the flow have many phenomenological parallels with those concerning the SGS statistics. Finally, a DNS of turbulent reacting wall-jet at a substantially higher Reynolds number is performed in order to extend the applicability range for the conclusions of the present study and figuring out the possible differences.QC 20150225