Numerical Computation of a Turbulent Lifted Flame Using Flamelet Generated Manifold With Different Progress Variable Definitions

Dimension reduction is a popular and attractive approach for modeling turbulent reacting flow incorporating finite rate chemistry effects. One of the earliest and most popular approaches in this category is the Laminar Flamelet Model (LFM), which represents the turbulent flame brush using statistical averaging of laminar flamelets whose structure is not affected by turbulence. The other common reduction approach is the intrinsic low dimensional manifold (ILDM). While, the LFM has limitations in predicting the non-equilibrium effects, the ILDM model suffers in the prediction of the low temperature kinetics. A combination of the two approaches where flamelet based manifold are generated called, Flamelet Generated Manifold (FGM) model considers that the scalar evolution in a turbulent flame can be approximated by the scalar evolution similar to that in a laminar flame. This model does not involve any assumption on flame structure. Therefore, it can be successfully used to model ignition, slow chemistry and quenching effects, which are far away from equilibrium. In the FGM, the manifold can be created using different flame configurations. For premixed flames, 1D unstrained flamelets are solved in reaction-progress space. In the case of diffusion flames, a counter flow configuration is used to generate a series of steady flamelets with increasing scalar dissipation and also an unsteady laminar flamelet is generated to create the diffusion FGM manifold. In the present work, a diffusion flamelet based FGM model is compared with the FGM model using premixed unstrained flamelet configurations. The performance and predictive capabilities of the two approaches are compared for a turbulent lifted methane flame in a diluted hot co-flow environment, where the reacting flow associated with the central jet exhibits similar chemical kinetics, heat transfer and molecular transport as recirculation burners without the complex recirculating fluid structures. It is observed that though the diffusion flamelet based FGM predicts a lifted flame, but the lift off height is lower compared to the premixed configuration. A parametric study with different normalization for the progress variable is done to study its impact on the flame characteristics and the manifold created. Finally, the computations are performed for different definitions of the progress variable from previously published works. It is seen that the results are sensitive to the various progress variable definitions, particularly when the number of species are higher and involve different time scales.