Template for Master Thesis subjects of BruFacE Electromechanical Engineering Title: Numerical simulation of flameless combustion: validation of combustion models and reduced in a wide range of operating conditions Promotor:

Flameless combustion represents a very appealing combustion technology due to its potential of coupling very high combustion efficiency with low NOx combustion emissions. However, due to its young character, the numerical modeling of flameless combustion is still characterized by open research questions, in particular related to the choice of the combustion model and of the kinetic mechanism. In particular, the combustion model should be able to describe the evolution of the system towards perfectly stirred reactor conditions and the kinetic mechanism should be validated at the conditions typical of such combustion regimes, high and homogenous temperatures and enhanced mixing. The aforementioned conditions are seldom verified with existing combustion and kinetic models, as they were developed for conventional combustion regimes. Therefore, the objective of the proposed MFE is that of optimizing the existing combustion models for flameless combustion conditions and to develop appropriate reduced kinetic mechanisms, by means of systematic approaches such as sensitivity analysis and graph theory. The determination of the range of applicability of the reduced mechanisms will be the main outcome of the investigation. The development of the reduced mechanisms will be carried out using kinetic analysis software, DARS by CD Adapco, and the proposed approach will be tested in commercial s well open-source CFD codes (StarCCM+ and OpenFOAM).