Numerical simulation of a laboratory-scale turbulent slot flame

We present three-dimensional, time-dependent simulations ofthe flowfield of a laboratory-scale slot burner. The simulations areperformed using an adaptive time-dependent low Mach number combustionalgorithm based on a second-order projection formulation that conservesboth species mass and total enthalpy. The methodology incorporatesdetailed chemical kinetics and a mixture model for differential speciesdiffusion. Methane chemistry and transport are modeled using the DRM-19mechanism along with its associated thermodynamics and transportdatabases. Adaptive mesh refinementdynamically resolves the flame andturbulent structures. Detailedcomparisons with experimental measurementsshow that the computational results provide a good prediction of theflame height, the shape of the time-averaged parabolic flame surfacearea, and the global consumption speed (the volume per second ofreactants consumed divided by the area of the time-averaged flame). Thethickness of the computed flamebrush increases in the streamwisedirection, and the flamesurface density profiles display the same generalshapes as the experiment. The structure of the simulated flame alsomatches the experiment; reaction layers are thin (typically thinner than1 mm) and the wavelengths of large wrinkles are 5--10 mm. Wrinklesamplify to become long fingers of reactants which burn through at a neckregion, forming isolated pockets of reactants. Thus both the simulatedflame and the experiment are in the "corrugated flameletregime."