A turbulence model sensitivity study for CH4/H2 bluff-body stabilized flames

The objective of this work is to assess the performances of different turbulence models in predicting turbulent diffusion flames in conjunction with the flamelet model. The k-epsilon model, the Explicit Algebraic Stress Model (EASM) and the k-epsilon model with varied anisotropy parameter C-mu (LEA k-epsilon model) are first applied to the inert turbulent flow over a backward-facing step, demonstrating the quality of the turbulence models. Following this, they are used to simulate the CH4/H-2 bluff-body flame studied by the University of Sydney/Sandia. The numerical results are compared to experimental values of the mixture fraction, velocity field, temperature and constituent mass fractions. The comparisons show that the overall result depends on the turbulence model used, and indicate that the EASM and the LEA k-epsilon models perform better than the k-epsilon model and mimic most of the significant flow features.