Assessment of the Partially Stirred Reactor Model for LES in a Swirl-Stabilized Turbulent Premixed Flame

This study presents an assessment of the Partially Stirred Reactor (PaSR) as a subgrid model for large eddy simulations (LES) of turbulent premixed combustion. The PaSR-LES approach uses a skeletal mechanism for methane/air combustion, and requires the transport of all the species, with a closure for the filtered source terms. The rate of progress for each reaction is given by the mixing and chemical time scales, which are computed from global flame parameters and a turbulent time scale respectively. This model is applied to a swirled combustor exhibiting a V-flame shape attached to the nozzle, subjected to heat loss. LES are carried out for two distinct equivalence ratios at atmospheric pressure. The flow fields and the thermochemical states from PaSR-LES are compared with the experimental data and solutions based on Flamelet Generated Manifolds (FGM). The results show good correlation with the experiments and FGM-LES, though also some sensitivity to the resolution. The approach also reproduces well the effect of heat loss, which is determined by the use of a chemical time scale given by a progress variable. Dedicated analysis of the swirl-stabilized flame on different regions is conducted evaluating the capabilities of the model to reproduce the burning velocity, flame shape and flame structure.