Fundamental Combustion Calculations With DARS and CHEMKIN™ Software Packages: A Comparison

An investigation was conducted within Honeywell to assess the speed, accuracy, and robustness of DARS for performing basic combustion calculations. In this study, the results for the fundamental combustion characteristics from DARS are compared with those obtained by CHEMKIN, the most well known and widely used software for combustion chemistry calculations. These characteristics include the adiabatic flame temperature, flame speed, ignition delay and extinction strain rate. The operating conditions (pressure and temperature) are chosen that are relevant to aircraft gas turbine combustors. For the ignition delay studies, Jet-A is used whereas Methane is the fuel for the other simulations. Well validated reaction mechanisms for Jet-A and Methane are used for the study. Temperature and species values (profiles) are presented and compared between DARS and CHEMKIN, wherever applicable. In general, very good agreement has been found between the results of DARS and CHEMKIN. The features provided by both tools with an emphasis on gas turbine combustion application were assessed. In conclusion, it was found that DARS has equivalent accuracy and capability as CHEMKIN for this type of application.