Modeling of a turbulent ethylene/air jet flame using hybrid finite volume/monte carlo methods

Detailed modeling of an experimental ethylene/air jet flame is undertaken using the joint composition probability distribution function (PDF) method for gas-phase kinetics coupled with detailed models for soot formation and radiation from the flames. The gas-phase kinetics is modeled using a reduced mechanism for ethylene consisting of 33 species and 205 elementary reactions. The soot formation is modeled using the method of moments with a simplified nucleation mechanism and modified surface-HACA (Hydrogen abstraction acetylene addition) mechanism for surface growth and oxidation. The soot formation is coupled directly with a transported PDF approach to account for turbulence-chemistry interactions in gas-phase chemistry and the highly nonlinear soot formation processes. Radiation from soot and combustion gases is accounted for by using a photon Monte Carlo method coupled with nongray properties for soot and gases. Soot particles are assumed to be small, and scattering effects are neglected. Turbulence-radiation interactions are captured accurately. Simulation results are compared to experimental data, and also with less CPU-intensive radiation calculations using the optically thin approximation.