Numerical simulation of an ethanol turbulent spray flame with RANS and diffusion combustion model

A detailed numerical simulation of ethanol turbulent spray combustion on a rounded jet flame is presented in this article. The focus is to propose a robust mathematical model with relatively low complexity submodels to reproduce the main characteristics of the coupling between both phases, such as the turbulence modulation, turbulent droplets dissipation, and evaporative cooling effect. A RANS turbulent model is implemented. Special features of the model include an Eulerian-Lagrangian procedure under a fully two-way coupling and a modified flame sheet model with a joint mixture fraction-enthalpy beta-PDF. Reasonable agreement between measured and computed mean profiles of temperature of the gas phase and droplet size distributions is achieved. Deviations found between measured and predicted mean velocity profiles are attributed to the turbulent combustion modeling adopted.