A Modeling Study of Local Equivalence Ratio Fluctuation in Imperfectly Premixed Turbulent Flames

The effect of fluctuation of Equivalence Ratio (ER) in a turbulent reactive field has been studied in order to check the global combustion characteristics induced by the local fluctuation. When the flow is premixed on a large scale, closer examination on a small scale reveals that local fluctuations of ER exist in an imperfectly premixed mixture, and that these fluctuations must be considered to correctly estimate the mean reaction rate. The fluctuation effect is analyzed with DNS by considering the joint PDF of reactive scalar and ER, followed by modeling study where an extension of stochastic mixing models accounting for the ER fluctuation is reviewed and tested. It was found that models prediction capability as well as its potential is in favor to this case accounting the local ER fluctuation. However, the effect of local fluctuation did not show any notable changes on the mean global characteristics of combustion when statistical independence between the reactive scalar and ER field is imposed, though it greatly influenced the joint PDF distribution. The importance of taking into account the statistical dependency between ER and combustible at the initial phase is demonstrated by testing the modeled reaction rate.