The Premixed Conditional Moment Closure Method Applied to Idealized Lean Premixed Gas Turbine Combustors

This paper presents the premixed Conditional Moment Closure (CMC) method as a new tool for modeling turbulent premixed combustion with detailed chemistry. By using conditional averages the CMC method can more accurately model the affects of the turbulent fluctuations of the temperature on the reaction rates. This provides an improved means of solving a major problem with traditional turbulent reacting flow models, namely how to close the reaction rate source term. Combined with a commercial CFD code this model provides insight into the emission formation pathways with reasonable runtimes. Results using the full GRI2.11 methane kinetic mechanism are compared to experimental data for a backward facing step burning premixed methane. This model holds promise as a design tool for lean premixed gas turbine combustors.