Large Eddy Simulation of an industrial gas-turbine combustion chamber using the sub-grid PDF method

An industrial gas turbine combustion chamber operating at a pressure of 3 bar is simulated using the sgs-pdf evolution equation approach in conjunction with the Eulerian stochastic field solution method in the context of Large Eddy Simulation. A dynamic version of the Smagorinsky model is adopted for the sub-grid stresses and eight stochastic fields were utilised to characterise the influence of the sub-grid fluctuations. The chemistry was represented by an ARM reduced GRI 3.0 mechanism with 15 reaction steps and 19 species. The results show good agreement with the experimental data in the flame region at different axial locations. The measured NO emission levels are also reproduced to a good accuracy by the method. The results serve to demonstrate that simulations of complex combustion problems using detailed, but reduced, chemistry in industrial geometries are achievable. (C) 2012 Published by Elsevier Inc. on behalf of The Combustion Institute.