Numerical Modeling of Laminar Flames with Detailed Kinetics Based on the Operator-Splitting Method

In
this work, we applied and analyzed a new computational code,
called laminarSMOKE, for the numerical simulation
of laminar flames in complex, multidimensional geometries with detailed
kinetic mechanisms. The code, built on top of the open-source OpenFOAM platform, solves the usual transport equations
of mass, momentum, energy, and species for reacting flows on both
structured and unstructured meshes. The operator-splitting technique
is adopted in order to effectively face the reacting, stiff processes
associated with detailed kinetics. The proposed algorithm was used
to simulate different combustion systems with different degrees of
complexity under both steady-state and transient conditions. In particular,
simulations of 1D and 2D laminar premixed flames, 2D counter-flow
diffusion flames, and coflow flames (purely diffusive and partially
premixed) were successfully performed, demonstrating that the proposed
tool is a robust, accurate solution method for laminar flames. In
particular, the simulations of coflow, laminar flames with very detailed
kinetic mechanisms (∼200 species) resulted in very good agreement
with published experimental data. Despite its generality (i.e., the
ability to manage arbitrarily complex multidimensional geometries),
the laminarSMOKE code showed satisfactory scalability
up to 96 processors. More importantly, as demonstrated by Tosatto
et al. [Combustion Theory
and Modeling 2011, 15 (4), 455−486], it was observed that the parallel efficiency increased with the
number of species in the kinetic scheme adopted. This makes the proposed
code an ideal framework for the numerical simulation of combustion
systems with very detailed kinetic schemes. In contrast to most of
the existing codes for the simulation of reacting systems with detailed
kinetics, the laminarSMOKE code is freely distributed
on the web (http://www.opensmoke.polimi.it/).