Dr. Ge collaborated with Dr. Gaofeng Wang’s team at Zhejiang University to conduct a numerical study of ignition process of an annular combustor. The paper was accepted for publication by International Journal of Numerical Methods for Heat & Fluid Flow.
Title: Simulations of flame propagation during the ignition process in an annular multiple-injector combustor
Abstract: Ignition process is a critical issue in combustion systems. It is particularly important for reliability and safety prospects of aero-engine. In this work, the burner-to-burner propagation during ignition process in a full annular multiple-injector combustor is numerically investigated and validated by comparing with the experiments. The annular multiple-injector experimental setup features sixteen swirling injectors and two quartz tubes providing optical accesses to high-speed imaging of flames. A Reynolds Averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) model, Adaptive Mesh Re finement (AMR), and complete San Diego chemistry are used to predict the ignition process. The ignition process shows an overall agreement with experiment. The integrated heat release rate of simulation and the integrated light intensity of experiment is also within reasonable agreement. The flow structure and flame propagation dynamics are carefully analyzed. It is found that the flame fronts propagate symmetrically at early stage and asymmetrically near merging stage. The flame speed slows down before flame merging. In overall, the numerical results show that the present numerical model can reliably predict the flame propagation during the ignition process.