An Attempt at Large Eddy Simulation for Combustor Modeling

Large eddy simulation (LES) is a promising method for numerical simulation in combustion systems. A LES attempt in a model combustor has been made, and a few important issues related to grid size, inflow condition, wall boundary conditions, physical sub-models and data sampling are discussed. Some of the numerical results are presented and compared with a comprehensive experimental database, which indicates that LES can provide reasonable predictions for the mean axial velocity and temperature distributions inside the combustion chamber. However, in order to make LES a valuable and cost-effective tool in the development of advanced combustion systems, some fundamental questions remain to be addressed and more validation efforts are required. Moreover significant computing power is required for LES to capture both the high and low frequencies of interest in the present turbulent reacting flow.