Effects of turbulence-chemistry interactions on auto-ignition and flame structure for n-dodecane spray combustion

The Engine Combustion Network (ECN) spray A under diesel engine conditions is investigated with a non-adiabatic 5D Flamelet Generated Manifolds (FGM) model with the consideration of detailed chemical kinetic mechanisms. The enthalpy deficit due to droplet vapourisation is considered by employing an additional controlling parameter in the FGM library. In this FGM model, beta-PDF is used for the PDF integration over the control variable space. Validation results in non-reacting conditions indicate relatively good agreement between the predicted and experimental data in terms of liquid and vapour penetrations and mixture fraction spatial distribution. In reacting conditions, the effects of variance of mixture fraction and progress variable were examined. The ignition delay time and the quasi-steady flame structure are both affected by the variances. The variance of mixture fraction delays the ignition process and the variance of progress variable accelerates it. For mixture fraction, the ignition process is quicker at any stage in the case of neglecting variance. While things are more complex for progress variable, the ignition process is advanced in the case of neglecting variance at early times, but surpassed by the case of beta-PDF later and until auto-ignition. When variance of mixture fraction is considered, the OH mass fraction shows a wide spatial distribution. While if not, a very thin flame is observed with a higher peak in OH, and a very large lift-off length. The variance of progress variable has little impact on the global flame structure, but makes the flame lift-off length much shorter. This study confirms the general observation, that the variance of mixture fraction is of higher importance in high temperature non-premixed combustion, however, we found that the variance of progress variable is far from negligible.