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NASA NTRS1978

Transient processes in the combustion of nitramine propellants

A transient combustion model of nitramine propellants is combined with an isentropic compression shock formation model to determine the role of nitramine propellant combustion in DDT, excluding effects associated with propellant structural properties or mechanical behavior. The model is derived to represent the closed pipe experiment that is widely used to characterize explosives, except that the combustible material is a monolithic charge rather than compressed powder. Computations reveal that the transient combustion process cannot by itself produce DDT by this model. Compressibility of the solid at high pressure is the key factor limiting pressure buildups created by the combustion. On the other hand, combustion mechanisms which promote pressure buildups are identified and related to propellant formulation variables. Additional combustion instability data for nitramine propellants are presented. Although measured combustion response continues to be low, more data are required to distinguish HMX and active binder component contributions. A design for a closed vessel apparatus for experimental studies of high pressure combustion is discussed.

Cohen, N. S.↗

NASA NTRS1987

Combustion noise from gas turbine aircraft engines measurement of far-field levels

Combustion noise can be a significant contributor to total aircraft noise. Measurement of combustion noise is made difficult by the fact that both jet noise and combustion noise exhibit broadband spectra and peak in the same frequency range. Since in-flight reduction of jet noise is greater than that of combustion noise, the latter can be a major contributor to the in-flight noise of an aircraft but will be less evident, and more difficult to measure, under static conditions. Several methods for measuring the far-field combustion noise of aircraft engines are discussed in this paper. These methods make it possible to measure combustion noise levels even in situations where other noise sources, such as jet noise, dominate. Measured far-field combustion noise levels for several turbofan engines are presented. These levels were obtained using a method referred to as three-signal coherence, requiring that fluctuating pressures be measured at two locations within the engine core in addition to the far-field noise measurement. Cross-spectra are used to separate the far-field combustion noise from far-field noise due to other sources. Spectra and directivities are presented. Comparisons with existing combustion noise predictions are made.

Krejsa, Eugene A.↗

NASA NTRS1987

Combustion noise from gas turbine aircraft engines measurement of far-field levels

Krejsa, Eugene A.↗

NASA NTRS1988

Tripropellant combustion process

The addition of small amounts of hydrogen to the combustion of LOX/hydrocarbon propellants in large rocket booster engines has the potential to enhance the system stability. Programs being conducted to evaluate the effects of hydrogen on the combustion of LOX/hydrocarbon propellants at supercritical pressures are described. Combustion instability has been a problem during the development of large hydrocarbon fueled rocket engines. At the higher combustion chamber pressures expected for the next generation of booster engines, the effect of unstable combustion could be even more destructive. The tripropellant engine cycle takes advantage of the superior cooling characteristics of hydrogen to cool the combustion chamber and a small amount of the hydrogen coolant can be used in the combustion process to enhance the system stability. Three aspects of work that will be accomplished to evaluate tripropellant combustion are described. The first is laboratory demonstration of the benefits through the evaluation of drop size, ignition delay and burning rate. The second is analytical modeling of the combustion process using the empirical relationship determined in the laboratory. The third is a subscale demonstration in which the system stability will be evaluated. The approach for each aspect is described and the analytical models that will be used are presented.

Kmiec, T. D.↗

NASA NTRS1931

The N.A.C.A. Apparatus for Studying the Formation and Combustion of Fuel Sprays and the Results from Preliminary Tests

Described here is an apparatus for studying the formation and combustion of fuel sprays under conditions closely simulating those in a high speed compression-ignition engine. The apparatus consists of a single-cylinder modified test engine, a fuel injection system so designed that a single charge of fuel can be injected into the combustion chamber, an electric driving motor, and a high-speed photographic apparatus. The cylinder head of the engine has a vertical disk form of combustion chamber whose sides are glass windows. When the fuel is injected into the combustion chamber, motion pictures at the rate of 2000 per second are taken of the spray formation by means of spark discharges. When combustion takes place, the light of combustion is recorded on the same photographic film as the spray photographs. Included here are the results of some tests to determine the effect of air temperature, air flow, and nozzle design on the spray formation. The results show that the compression temperature has little effect on the penetration of the fuel spray, but does not affect the dispersion, that air velocities of about 300 feet per second are necessary to destroy the core of the spray, and that the effect of air flow on the spray is controlled to a certain extent by the design of the injection nozzle. The results on the combustion of the spray show that when ignition does not take place until after spray cut-off, the ignition may start almost simultaneously throughout the combustion chamber or at different points throughout the chamber. When ignition takes place before spray cut-off, the combustion starts around the edge of the spray and then spreads throughout the chamber.

Rothrock, A M↗

NASA NTRS1996

The 33rd JANNAF Combustion Subcommittee Meeting

This volume, the second of four volumes, is a collection of 48 unclassified/unlimited papers which were presented at the 33rd Joint Army-Navy-NASA-Air Force (JANNAF) Combustion Subcommittee Meeting conjunction with the Propulsion Systems Hazards Subcommittee held 4-8 November 1996 at the Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, CA. The JANNAF papers contained in this volume review many areas of solid propellant combustion to include combustion fundamentals, combustion instability fundamentals and combustion instability applied to motors, AP combustion, Nitramine combustion, metal combustion, kinetics and spectroscopy and combustion topics of broad general interest.

Fry, Ronald S.↗

NASA NTRS1997

Heterogeneous Combustion of Porous Graphite Particles in Microgravity

Recent theoretical investigations on graphite particle combustion have employed several levels of heterogeneous reaction models, ranging from global to elementary models, to describe the oxidation of carbon to gaseous products. Unlike the counterpart homogeneous reaction models, these heterogeneous reaction models are not well developed because of the difficulties associated with decoupling the physical characteristics of the solid (e.g. surface area taking part in combustion) from the chemical kinetic data. This is certainly true for porous graphite particle combustion, where heterogeneous and homogeneous reactions occur within the pores and play an important role in the overall oxidation process. As a result, there are considerable uncertainties of physical phenomena predicted using different heterogeneous kinetic models available in the literature. A good example, discussed later in this paper, is the predicted critical particle size below which the mass burning rate becomes exponentially small. The main goal of this study is to understand the basic mechanism controlling such rapid changes in burning rates, by developing a model where physical contributions are decoupled from chemical rate constants in a consistent manner. Another important goal of the proposed study is to develop a truly intrinsic, detailed heterogeneous reaction model for porous graphite combustion at high-temperatures, and to derive a systematically reduced heterogeneous reaction model in terms of the elementary reaction rate constants of the detailed model. The validation of chemical kinetic models describing the heterogeneous and homogeneous combustion in and around a spherically symmetric porous graphite particle can be considerably simplified by experimental measurements obtained under microgravity conditions. A vital component of this study is to conduct such supporting experiments on particle burning rate and surface temperature using NASA microgravity facilities, in close coordination with the theoretical effort. The basic understanding obtained and models developed as part of this project will be useful for optimal design of coal combustion devices. These models can also be extended to investigate the role of heterogeneous chemistry on pollutant formation pathways in combustion devices. The theoretical approach developed here, with pore diffusion effects decoupled from the chemical effects, can also be extended to understand the heterogeneous combustion of other porous fuels, for example, combustion of magnesium in a CO2 environment for propulsion in the Martian atmosphere.

Chelliah, Harsha K.↗

NASA NTRS2000

Diffusion Driven Combustion Waves in Porous Media

Filtration of gas containing oxidizer, to the reaction zone in a porous medium, due, e.g., to a buoyancy force or to an external pressure gradient, leads to the propagation of Filtration combustion (FC) waves. The exothermic reaction occurs between the fuel component of the solid matrix and the oxidizer. In this paper, we analyze the ability of a reaction wave to propagate in a porous medium without the aid of filtration. We find that one possible mechanism of propagation is that the wave is driven by diffusion of oxidizer from the environment. The solution of the combustion problem describing diffusion driven waves is similar to the solution of the Stefan problem describing the propagation of phase transition waves, in that the temperature on the interface between the burned and unburned regions is constant, the combustion wave is described by a similarity solution which is a function of the similarity variable x/square root of(t) and the wave velocity decays as 1/square root of(t). The difference between the two problems is that in the combustion problem the temperature is not prescribed, but rather, is determined as part of the solution. We will show that the length of samples in which such self-sustained combustion waves can occur, must exceed a critical value which strongly depends on the combustion temperature T(sub b). Smaller values of T(sub b) require longer sample lengths for diffusion driven combustion waves to exist. Because of their relatively small velocity, diffusion driven waves are considered to be relevant for the case of low heat losses, which occur for large diameter samples or in microgravity conditions, Another possible mechanism of porous medium combustion describes waves which propagate by consuming the oxidizer initially stored in the pores of the sample. This occurs for abnormally high pressure and gas density. In this case, uniformly propagating planar waves, which are kinetically controlled, can propagate, Diffusion of oxidizer decreases the wave velocity. In addition to the reaction and diffusion layers, the uniformly propagating wave structure includes a layer with a pressure gradient, where the gas motion is induced by the production or consumption of the gas in the reaction as well as by thermal expansion of the gas. The width of this zone determines the scale of the combustion wave in the porous medium.

Aldushin, A. P.↗

NASA NTRS2001

Mechanistic Studies of Combustion and Structure Formation During Synthesis of Advanced Materials

Combustion in a variety of heterogeneous systems, leading to the synthesis of advanced materials, is characterized by high temperatures (2000-3500 K) and heating rates (up to 10(exp 6) K/s) at and ahead of the reaction front. These high temperatures generate liquids and gases which are subject to gravity-driven flow. The removal of such gravitational effects is likely to provide increased control of the reaction front, with a consequent improvement in control of the microstructure of the synthesized products. Thus, microgravity (mu-g) experiments lead to major advances in the understanding of fundamental aspects of combustion and structure formation under the extreme conditions of the combustion synthesis (CS) wave. In addition, the specific features of microgravity environment allow one to produce unique materials, which cannot be obtained under terrestrial conditions. The current research is a logic continuation of our previous work on investigations of the fundamental phenomena of combustion and structure formation that occur at the high temperatures achieved in a CS wave. Our research is being conducted in three main directions: 1) Microstructural Transformations during Combustion Synthesis of Metal-Ceramic Composites. The studies are devoted to the investigation of particle growth during CS of intermetallic-ceramic composites, synthesized from nickel, aluminum, titanium, and boron metal reactants. To determine the mechanisms of particle growth, the investigation varies the relative amount of components in the initial mixture to yield combustion wave products with different ratios of solid and liquid phases, under 1g and mu-g conditions; 2) Mechanisms of Heat Transfer during Reactions in Heterogeneous Media. Specifically, new phenomena of gasless combustion wave propagation in heterogeneous media with porosity higher than that achievable in normal gravity conditions, are being studied. Two types of mixtures are investigated: clad powders, where contact between reactants occurs within each particle, and mixtures of elemental powders, where interparticle contacts are important for the reaction; and 3) Mechanistic Studies of Phase Separation in Combustion of Thermite Systems. Studies are devoted to experiments on thermite systems (metal oxide-reducing metal) where phase separation processes occur to produce alloys with tailored compositions and properties. The separation may be either gravity-driven or due to surface forces, and systematic studies to elucidate the true mechanism are being conducted. The knowledge obtained will be used to find the most promising ways of controlling the microstructure and properties of combustion-synthesized materials. Low-gravity experiments are essential to create idealized an environment for insights into the physics and chemistry of advanced material synthesis processes.

Varma, A.↗

NASA NTRS1995

Advanced Subsonic Combustion Rig Developed

The Advanced Subsonic Combustion Rig (ASCR), a unique, state-of-the-art facility for conducting combustion research, is located at the NASA Lewis Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio. The ASCR, which was nearing completion at the close of 1995, will be capable of simulating the very high pressure and high temperature conditions that are expected to exist in future, advanced subsonic gas turbine (jet) engines. Future environmental regulations will require much cleaner burning (more environmentally friendly) aircraft engines. The ASCR is critical to the development of these cleaner engines. It will allow NASA and U.S. aircraft engine industry researchers to identify and test promising clean-burning gas turbine engine combustion concepts under the pressure and temperature conditions that are expected for those future engines. Combustion processes will be investigated for a variety of next-generation aircraft engine sizes, including engines for large, long-range aircraft (with typical trip lengths of about 3000 mi) and for regional aircraft (with typical trip lengths of about 400 mi). The ASCR design was conceived and initiated in 1993, and fabrication and construction of the rig, including the buildup of an advanced control room, took place throughout 1994 and 1995. In early 1996, the ASCR will be operational for obtaining research data. The ASCR is an intricate part of the NASA Advanced Subsonic Technology Propulsion Program, which is aimed at developing technologies critical to the next generation of gas turbine engines. This effort is in collaboration with the U.S. aircraft gas turbine engine industry. A goal of the Advanced Subsonic Technology Propulsion Program is to develop combustion concepts and technologies that will result in gas turbine engines that produce 50 percent less nitrous oxide (NO_x) pollutants than current engines do. This facility is unique in its capability to simulate advanced subsonic engine pressure, temperature, and air flow rate conditions. Specifically, it will provide operating temperatures up to 3000 F and pressures up to 60 atm. Under these conditions, researchers will obtain detailed combustion temperatures, pressures, and flow velocities as well as the chemical compositions of the combustion exhaust. Researchers also will be able to obtain data by using nonintrusive laser diagnostic techniques. The ASCR facility will be used to test fundamental combustion configurations (flametubes) for detailed study of combustion processes, to test sectors of gas turbine combustors to study the process in configurations more like those of aircraft engines, and in some cases to test full annular combustors.

Source record↗

NASA NTRS1996

Microgravity Smoldering Combustion Takes Flight

The Microgravity Smoldering Combustion (MSC) experiment lifted off aboard the Space Shuttle Endeavour in September 1995 on the STS-69 mission. This experiment is part of series of studies focused on the smolder characteristics of porous, combustible materials in a microgravity environment. Smoldering is a nonflaming form of combustion that takes place in the interior of combustible materials. Common examples of smoldering are nonflaming embers, charcoal briquettes, and cigarettes. The objective of the study is to provide a better understanding of the controlling mechanisms of smoldering, both in microgravity and Earth gravity. As with other forms of combustion, gravity affects the availability of air and the transport of heat, and therefore, the rate of combustion. Results of the microgravity experiments will be compared with identical experiments carried out in Earth's gravity. They also will be used to verify present theories of smoldering combustion and will provide new insights into the process of smoldering combustion, enhancing our fundamental understanding of this frequently encountered combustion process and guiding improvement in fire safety practices.

Source record↗

NASA NTRS1998

Droplet Combustion Experiment

Liquid fuel combustion provides a major portion of the world's energy supply. In most practical combustion devices, liquid burns after being separated into a droplet spray. Essential to the design of efficient combustion systems is a knowledge of droplet combustion behavior. The microgravity environment aboard spacecraft provides an opportunity to investigate the complex interactions between the physical and chemical combustion processes involved in droplet combustion without the complications of natural buoyancy. Launched on STS-83 and STS-94 (April 4 and July 1, 1997), the Droplet Combustion Experiment (DCE) investigated the fundamentals of droplet combustion under a range of pressures (0.25 to 1 atm), oxygen mole fractions (<0.5), and droplet sizes (1.5 to 5 mm). Principal DCE flight hardware features were a chamber to supply selected test environments, the use of crew-inserted bottles, and a vent system to remove unwanted gaseous combustion products. The internal apparatus contained the droplet deployment and ignition mechanisms to burn single, freely deployed droplets in microgravity. Diagnostics systems included a 35-mm high-speed motion picture camera (see the following sequence of photos) with a backlight to photograph burning droplets and a camcorder to monitor experiment operations. Additional diagnostics included an ultraviolet-light-sensitive CCD (charge couple discharge) camera to obtain flame radiation from hydroxyl radicals (see the final figure) and a 35-mm SLR (single-lens-reflex) camera to obtain color still photographs of the flames.

Nayagam, Vedha↗

NASA NTRS2016

Design and Fabrication of Oxygen/RP-2 Multi-Element Oxidizer-Rich Staged Combustion Thrust Chamber Injectors

As part of the Combustion Stability Tool Development project funded by the Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center, the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center was contracted to assemble and hot-fire test a multi-element integrated test article demonstrating combustion characteristics of an oxygen/hydrocarbon propellant oxidizer-rich staged-combustion engine thrust chamber. Such a test article simulates flow through the main injectors of oxygen/kerosene oxidizer-rich staged combustion engines such as the Russian RD-180 or NK-33 engines, or future U.S.-built engine systems such as the Aerojet-Rocketdyne AR-1 engine or the Hydrocarbon Boost program demonstration engine. On the current project, several configurations of new main injectors were considered for the thrust chamber assembly of the integrated test article. All the injector elements were of the gas-centered swirl coaxial type, similar to those used on the Russian oxidizer-rich staged-combustion rocket engines. In such elements, oxidizer-rich combustion products from the preburner/turbine exhaust flow through a straight tube, and fuel exiting from the combustion chamber and nozzle regenerative cooling circuits is injected near the exit of the oxidizer tube through tangentially oriented orifices that impart a swirl motion such that the fuel flows along the wall of the oxidizer tube in a thin film. In some elements there is an orifice at the inlet to the oxidizer tube, and in some elements there is a sleeve or "shield" inside the oxidizer tube where the fuel enters. In the current project, several variations of element geometries were created, including element size (i.e., number of elements or pattern density), the distance from the exit of the sleeve to the injector face, the width of the gap between the oxidizer tube inner wall and the outer wall of the sleeve, and excluding the sleeve entirely. This paper discusses the design rationale for each of these element variations, including hydraulic, structural, thermal, combustion performance, and combustion stability considerations. This paper also discusses the fabrication and assembly of the injector components, including the injector body/interpropellant plate, the additive manufactured GRCop-84 faceplate, and the pieces that make up the injector elements including the oxidizer tube, an inlet to the oxidizer tube, and a facenut that includes the fuel tangential inlets and forms the initial recessed volume where oxidizer and fuel first interact. Hot-fire test results of these main injector designs in an integrated test article that includes an oxidizer-rich preburner are described in companion papers at this JANNAF meeting.

Garcia, C. P.↗

DOE OSTI2020

Radiant boiler for pressurized oxy-combustion and method of radiant trapping to control heat flux in high temperature particle-laden flows at elevated pressure

A boiler has a shell surrounding a vertical centerline. The shell defines an inner surface having an inner diameter and an inner length extending between an upper upstream end and a lower downstream end. The inner surface defines a hollow interior, the boiler having a pre-combustion zone, a combustion zone downstream from the pre-combustion zone, and a post-combustion zone downstream from the combustion zone. The shell is tapered outward along its length in at least a portion of the combustion zone. An oxidizer inlet is in fluid communication with the pre-combustion zone, and a fuel nozzle introduces fuel into the combustion zone. A tube assembly is mounted in the hollow interior of the shell for transferring heat to fluid flowing through the tube assembly. A flue duct is in fluid communication with the post-combustion zone for transporting flue gases from the hollow interior.

20 FOSSIL-FUELED POWER PLANTS↗

DOE OSTI2023

Cost-constrained adaptive simulations of transient spray combustion in a gas turbine combustor

Predictive high-fidelity simulations of turbulent spray combustion must capture the combined effects of complex chemistry, multiphase evaporating flow and spray-flame interactions to achieve physical accuracy. Finite-rate chemistry (FRC) combined with a realistic chemical mechanism is a combustion model well-suited for this purpose, but has a high computational cost due to the large number and stiffness of transported chemical species. In contrast, flamelet-based models achieve lower cost by transporting a small number of quantities of reduced stiffness, but assumptions regarding local flame topology, boundary conditions and inter-phase coupling limit their physical accuracy. Recently, the Pareto-efficient combustion (PEC) framework was developed to dynamically assign combustion models based on local cost and accuracy metrics in gas-phase reacting flows. In this work, we extend this PEC framework to spray combustion through the rigorous analysis of the multiphase coupling terms in the governing equations. The derivation shows that spray evaporation causes errors in the prediction of species mass fractions for flamelet-based models due to the sensitivity of the local thermo-chemical state to changes in composition caused by fuel vaporization across combustion regimes present in practical spray combustion devices. Sub-model assignment is formulated as a multiple-choice knapsack problem, where computational cost is directly controlled through the fraction of the domain assigned to the FRC sub-model. The extended PEC formulation is applied to the simulation of a realistic rich-quench-lean gas turbine combustor at steady-state conditions, as well as transient operation resulting in lean blow-out (LBO). Analysis of transient simulations during LBO demonstrates the extended PEC formulation’s capacity to dynamically adapt to changing conditions within the combustor. Transient combustor dynamics are shown to approach convergence with limited increases in computational cost, while retaining substantial computational cost reduction compared to monolithic FRC simulations. Through PEC simulations with increasing fractions of the domain assigned to FRC, monolithic flamelet simulations are shown to over-predict flame stability during LBO. Finally, the extended PEC formulation is thus shown to overcome deficiencies of monolithic models by controlling modeling error for multiphase combustion modeling.

33 ADVANCED PROPULSION SYSTEMS↗

DOE OSTI2026

Flame Chemistry Workshop: a perspective on challenges and strategic actions in combustion experiments and chemical kinetics modeling

Continued progress in the development of predictive models for combustion chemistry—including ignition and flame behavior, species evolution, and combustion system performance—relies on overcoming enduring and emerging challenges in experimental measurements, theoretical formulations, and chemical kinetics mechanism construction. As combustion science continues to coincide with advances in sustainable fuels development, plasma technologies, and automated modeling capabilities, the need for coordinated, community-driven strategies is essential. The Flame Chemistry Workshop (FCWS), held biennially before the International Symposium on Combustion, serves as a dedicated platform to identify, consolidate, and address these challenges in a structured and collaborative manner. This perspective arises from discussions at the 7th FCWS in Milan, Italy (2024), and presents a collective view of the critical barriers currently limiting progress. Across the five technical domains discussed during the 7th FCWS – sustainable fuels combustion, advanced diagnostics for combustion measurements, experiments and modeling in plasma combustion, artificial intelligence and automated methods for theory and mechanisms generation, and chemical kinetic models—a series of persistent and emerging scientific challenges were identified, highlighting the need for deeper integration between three areas: theory, experiments, and modeling. In conclusion, the present article concisely describes present challenges that were identified in each of the technical domains in an effort to streamline and coordinate solutions to accelerate progress in combustion science.

Chemical kinetics↗

DOE OSTI2024

Numerical investigation of equivalence ratio effects on Flex-Fuel mixing controlled combustion enabled by prechamber ignition

There is interest in adapting renewable and low-carbon intensity fuels to heavy-duty engines to help displace criteria and greenhouse gas emissions associated with diesel combustion. Low-carbon fuels have inherently low cetane numbers and thus pose a significant challenge when considering direct substitution in diesel combustion systems. Use of an actively fueled prechamber as an ignition source to initiate mixing-controlled combustion (PC-MCC) of low-cetane fuels is becoming an attractive combustion mode to alleviate the identified reactivity deficit. This work focuses on the utilization of an active prechamber to facilitate diesel-like combustion of bioethanol-gasoline fuel blends in a heavy-duty engine. Recent results in this emerging technology suggest that ignition quality is uniquely coupled to prechamber equivalence ratio. In this numerical study, the fundamental implications of prechamber equivalence ratio on the ignition performance of direct injected fuels ranging from E10 to E100 are investigated using CONVERGE. Parametric studies of the prechamber operating strategy were assessed at diesel-like conditions to characterize the performance trends relative to a diesel baseline at the same boundary conditions. Simulation results indicate that PC-MCC is flex-fuel capable and achieves diesel-like ignition qualities and combustion processes for all fuels considered under stoichiometric and rich prechamber conditions. To characterize the equivalence ratio trends observed, a novel inflow boundary modeling technique was utilized to prescribe turbulent jets in place of the prechamber where selective speciation of the jet composition was conducted to isolate the ignition contributions of radical and reacting species in lean, stoichiometric, and rich jets. The inflow boundary modeling suggests that excess fuel and combustion intermediates present in jets produced from stratified and fuel-rich prechamber operation promotes higher jet temperatures and as such are superior ignition sources. Relative to a lean prechamber jet, the peak temperature of a reacting jet from a rich prechamber was up to 600 K hotter at fixed distances from the orifice exit. Furthermore, radicals also demonstrated an influence on the ignition process, but the combustion mode was identified to be thermally dominant.

33 ADVANCED PROPULSION SYSTEMS↗

DOE OSTI2026

Hybrid combustion modeling approach for turbulent jet ignition in natural-gas pre-chamber spark-ignition engines at high EGR

Here, this study presented a hybrid modeling approach for simulating turbulent jet ignition and combustion processes in a natural-gas pre-chamber spark-ignition engine operating under exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) diluted conditions. In-depth analyses of experimental data and simulation results from previous work [Chinnathambi et al., ICEF2021-67836; Kim et al., Fuel 409: 137815, 2026] revealed two key findings: (i) the magnitude of pressure difference between the pre-chamber and main chamber ($∆P_{PC-MC}$) was positively correlated with the combustion duration from the moment of $∆P_{PC-MC}=0$ to the point of 5% mass fraction burned, with larger $∆P_{PC-MC}$ associated with longer duration; and (ii) the turbulent combustion regime in the main chamber transitioned from the broken reaction zone to the corrugated flamelet regime, with the Karlovitz number exceeding 100 immediately after turbulent hot jets were ejected from nozzles, coinciding with observed local extinction events. To accurately simulate the entire combustion process, a hybrid approach was developed under Reynolds-Averaged Navier Stokes framework, combining the G-equation model for pre-chamber combustion with the multi-zone well-stirred reactor approach and a turbulence-chemistry interaction (TCI) submodel for main chamber combustion. The TCI submodel accounted for the attenuation of reaction rates due to turbulent strain and modeled local extinction by suppressing reaction rates under certain flow and flame conditions. When applied to three EGR rate conditions toward the dilution limit, the hybrid modeling approach accurately reproduced experimental data in terms of cylinder pressure, apparent heat release rate, and the observed positive correlation, including the delayed onset of main chamber combustion—a feature not captured by existing combustion models.

computational fluid dynamics simulation↗