Combustion modeling including heat loss using flamelet generated manifolds: a validation study in OpenFOAM

In numerical combustion applications the Flamelet Generated Manifolds technique (FGM) is being used at an increasingly number of occasions. This technique is an approach to reduce the chemistry efficiently and accurately. In the present work FGM is coupled to an OpenFOAM-based CFD solver. The multidimensional flame is described by an ensemble of 1D laminar flames generated through a 1D detailed chemistry solver, by taking into account both convective and diffusive contributions as well as the required source terms. The flame structure is parameterized as function of a progress variable and few controlling variables such as the variance of the progress variable and the enthalpy. A manifold, which collects the 1D flame properties, is built from the 1D flame solutions. For the progress variable and each controlling variable, a transport equation is added to the standard flow conservation equations. During runtime, key quantities are retrieved from the manifold by interpolation. The resulting FGM-CFD coupled code has two significant features: the ability to treat heat loss effects and the adoption of turbulence level to describe the flame structure, providing high quality numerical results within practical industrial configurations. In the present work, a backward-facing step configuration with a methane/air mixture is investigated. Some key aspects of reactive phenomena in standard industrial burner configurations, such as the recirculation region development and the flame stabilization, are considered here. Numerical simulations are performed comparing results with experiments available in literature (Banhawy et al. Combust. Flame 50:153–165, 18). Both RANS and LES approaches are adopted: improvements with respect to prior available works are highlighted. Moreover, LES data, available for the first time within this configuration, are used to provide a deeper insight of turbulence/combustion interaction.