Heat Transfer Characteristics of Turbulent Flames in Three-Dimensional Furnaces

The recent advances in numerical methods and the vast development of computers have directed the designers to better development and modifications to air-flow pattern and heat transfer in combustion chambers. Extensive efforts are exerted to adequately predict the air velocity and turbulence intensity distributions in the combustor zones, and to reduce the air pollution and noise abatement to ultimately produce quite and energy efficient combustor systems. The present work utilizes mathematical modeling techniques to primarily predict what happens in three-dimensional combustion chambers simulating boiler furnaces, and areo engines in terms of flow regimes and interactions. The present work also demonstrates the effect of chamber design and operational parameters on performance, wall shear stresses, and vorticity under various operating parameters. The governing equations of mass, momentum and energy are commonly expressed in a preset form with source terms to represent pressure radients, turbulence and viscous action. The physical and chemical characteristics of the air and fuel are obtained from tabulated data in the literature. The flow regimes and heat transfer plays an important role in the efficiency and utilization of energy. The behavior was found to be strongly dependent on turbulent shear, mixing, blockage, wall conditions and location of fuel and air inlets. Eddies can be strong enough to have higher velocities typically near reactants supply openings. Excessive transverse flow velocities cause extra macromixing; the air flow regimes are complex and of three-dimensional nature; with the advance of computational techniques it is possible to accurately simulate three-dimensional flows. The results reported in this work were obtained with the aid of the three-dimensional program 3DCOMB; applied to axisymmetrical and three-dimensional complex geometry with and without swirl. The present numerical grid comprises, typically, 144000-grid node covering the combustion chamber volume in the X, R or Y and Z coordinates directions. The numerical residual in the governing equations typically less than 0.001%. A modified grid generation formula was proposed and incorporated in the present work. Examples of large industrial furnaces are shown and were in good agreement with available measurements in the open literature. One may conclude that flow patterns, turbulence and heat transfer in combustors are strongly affected by the inlet swirl, inlet momentum ratios, combustor geometry; both micro and macro mixing levels are influential. Greater tangential velocities and turbulence characteristics are demonstrated in situations with higher swirl intensities. The present modeling capabilities can adequately predict the local flow pattern and turbulence kinetic energy levels in complex combustors.