A Subgrid Soot Radiation

Model and Its Application

to LES of Buoyant
Turbulent Diffusion Flames
Prateep Chatterjee, Niveditha Krishnamoorthy,
John L. de Ris, Yi Wang and Sergey B. Dorofeev
Fire Hazards and Protection Area
6th International Seminar on Fire and Explosion Hazards
April 15, 2010

Presentation Outline
Flamelet based soot-radiation modeling
Application in LES of optically thin turbulent flames
Radiative Transfer Equation (RTE)
Parallel panel simulations (inert Marinite panels)

Laminar Flames to Large Scale Sooty Fires

Develop, implement and validate models for
soot and gas-phase radiation and radiation
transport in large scale sooty turbulent fires

Thermal Radiation in Fires

fires are radiation dominated and soot is primarily
responsible for radiation heat transfer

Fuel

flame heat flux on fuel surfaces

soot is the major constituent of smoke

classical soot models for simple hydrocarbons

(e.g. Tesner, Lindstedt, Moss)
nucleation, surface growth, agglomeration and
oxidation mechanisms
several model constants
extension to practical fuels difficult

q& rad

Laminar Smokepoint Concept

Maximum height of a laminar diffusion flame burning in air at
which smoke is not released from the tip
ranges from a few mm to 25+ cm
empirical measure of relative sooting propensity
bench-scale flammability property
gases, liquids, solids
controls amount of radiation

Markstein (1984), de Ris (1987), Tewarson (1988), .

Laminar Smokepoint Model

Soot Formation Rate
depends locally only on the mixture composition and temperature
peak soot formation rate inversely proportional to the smoke-point flame height
of the fuel

Soot Oxidation Rate

not controlled by available soot surface area
limited by diffusion of oxygen to the flame
shuts off for temperatures less than 1400 K

Lautenberger et al (2005)

Laminar Smokepoint Model

Lautenberger et al (2005)

Laminar Smokepoint Flame Modeling

soot release

soot is produced during high temperature pyrolysis / combustion of

O

hydrocarbons

emission of soot from a flame is determined by competition between

soot formation and oxidation
F

Formation (production) occurs in fuel-rich flame regions

F

O Oxidation (destruction) occurs in fuel-lean flame regions

Flow
Chatterjee et al (2010)

Time varying strain rate

Flamelet Soot-Radiation Modeling

the soot formation region is treated as a laminar flamelet influenced by the local
turbulent flow field
emitted radiation and soot release from the flamelet depends on imposed strain
rate (a0) and local prior heat loss/gain fraction (Hp)
Computational
grid cell

Air

Flame
Air
Flame

Fuel

Flamelet Soot-Radiation Modeling

v, y

uniform (in space) strain rate

u, x

Planar Flame Slab

two-dimensional burning fuel slab subject to

the fuel slab gets elongated in the longitudinal

direction (x-dir) and compressed in the
transverse direction (y-dir)

2l

u , x

v, y

initially, the slab is positioned between

-l y l with oxidant outside (fuel eddy)

strain rate compresses the slab and causes

increase in burning rate

Flamelet Soot-Radiation Modeling

infinitely fast single-step gas-phase chemistry (Schvab-Zeldovich)
sensible enthalpy (temperature) is a function of chemical composition
and local heat loss (radiatively perturbed laminar flamelet)

temperature dependent Cp
correction for dissociation effects
enthalpy correction for multi-component diffusion effects

optically thin radiation from soot

thermophoretic diffusion of soot

Chatterjee et al (2007)

Flamelet Conservation Equations

Transformed Set of Equations

Howarth-Dorodnitzyn transformation eliminates variable density effects

Fuel Eddy Description

Air

Flame
Air

Fuel

Effect of a0 on Soot Release and Radiation

a0 = 100 1/s

a0 = 50 1/s

Effect of a0 on Soot Release and Radiation

a0 = 20 1/s

a0 = 5 1/s

Prior Heat Loss

local prior heat loss/gain
fraction in the turbulent flame

convective losses

temperature in the flamelet

reduces uniformly over mixture
fraction space
weakening of soot formation rate
lower amounts of soot produced;
lower integrated radiant fraction;
less soot released

2500
Temperature [K]

due to radiating soot and gaseous

products

3000

2000

Hp = 0

1500
1000
500
0

Hp = 1
0

0.2

0.4
0.6
Mixture Fraction, Z [-]

0.8

Flamelet Lookup Table

provides radiant emission and soot release from flamelet
radiant energy emitted during flamelet residence time per unit combustion energy released
mass of soot released by the flamelet per unit fuel mass consumed
depends on strain rate (a0) and prior loss/gain fraction (Hp)

Large Eddy Simulation (LES)

FireFOAM solver based on OpenFOAM toolbox

fully compressible Navier-Stokes equations
infinitely fast chemistry; presumed beta-Pdf of SGS mixture fraction
SGS kinetic energy equation

radiation source term

FireFOAM
solver

soot transport equation with source term

Hp

Wang et al (2010)

Lookup
table

LES of Slot Burner Flames

Slot burner: 16 mm 380 mm

Mesh: 100k / 200k cells

HRR: 16 66 kW

Fuels: ethane, ethylene, propylene

No RTE solution optically thin radiation

source term in the total enthalpy equation

results averaged over 20 s

Markstein and de Ris (1998)

Slot Burner: Overall Radiant Fractions

0.6

with increasing HRR, r remains

unchanged

ethane: 0.25 0.26;

ethylene: 0.38 0.39;
propylene: 0.40 0.45
dependence on constant C:
doubling C reduces r by 10%

CFD

0.3
0.15

Radiant Fraction, [ - ]
r

r scales with fuels laminar

smokepoint height

Experiment

0.45

Ethane

0
50

75

100

125

150

175

200

100

125

150

175

200

100

125

150

175

200

0.6
0.45
0.3
0.15

Ethylene

0
50

75

0.6
0.45
0.3
0.15

Propylene

0
50

75

Heat Release Rate Per Unit Width [ kW/m ]

RTE (Parallel Panel Simulations)

finite volume RTE solver (fvDOM)

verified radiant energy conservation

(global and local)

flame emits radiation isotropically

the emitted radiation is absorbed,

reflected and re-radiated by surfaces

no absorption by flame or combustion

products

gaseous species

soot formation and

oxidation in the flame

soot transported
into the cell

soot released from

the flame sheet

Parallel Panel Simulation

domain: 3m x 3m x 4.2m

0.6m x 2.4m parallel panels; 0.6m x

0.3m sand burner

centerline

500k cells (1cm x 1.25cm x 1cm)

offset

propane burner flame (60 kW)

Marinite-I inert panels

RTE solved for 48 angles

solution every 100 flow time steps

Marinite-I panels

Sand burner

0.15 m
Tewarson and Khan (1989), Krishnamoorthy et al (2010)

Angular Discretization
surface incident heat flux, surface temperature at 0.9 m height and
integrated incident heat flux
three angular discretization cases (32, 48 and 80 angles)

single location 0.9 m (left panel)

Integrated (left panel)

Heat Flux and Temperature

45

CFD
Exp 1
Exp 2

16
12

30

15

0
0

10 20 30 40 50
Time [ s ]

0
0

700

700

600

600

500

500

400

400

300
0

10 20 30 40 50
Time [ s ]

300
0

0.6 m

0.9 m

Incident Heat Flux [ kW/m 2 ]

60

Centerline

10 20 30 40 50
Time [ s ]

Surface Temperature [ K ]

Surface Temperature [ K ]

Incident Heat Flux [ kW/m 2 ]

0.3 m

10 20 30 40 50
Time [ s ]

Offset

16

12

0
0

10 20 30 40 50
Time [ s ]

0
0

500

500

450

450

400

400

350

350

300
0

10 20 30 40 50
Time [ s ]

300
0

1.2 m

10 20 30 40 50
Time [ s ]

10 20 30 40 50
Time [ s ]

Incident Radiation on Left Panel

radiant emission from flame remains invariant
right panel heats up; re-radiation from right panel increases heat flux on left panel
incident heat flux contribution from flame ~ 6 kW on each of the panels
at 50 s, incident heat flux contribution from the other panel ~ 3 kW

~ 3 kW
~ 6 kW

Net Radiation on Panels

Net radiative heat

transfer decreases as
panel re-radiation
increases (increasing
surface temperature)

Summary & Future Work

Smokepoint based laminar flamelet model implemented in FireFOAM
overall radiant fractions from optically thin buoyant turbulent flames does
not vary with heat release rates for a given fuel
scaling of overall radiant fractions with laminar smokepoint height
strain rate estimation (grid size dependence, near walls)
different fuel types

Flamelet model applied to parallel panel simulation

isotropic emission of radiation from flame sheet
heat flux to inert panels; temperature rise of the panel surface
application to flame spread studies (PMMA, corrugated, cPVC)
optically thick media (soot and gas-phase radiation)
angular discretization (ray effect, grid dependence)