Numerical Study on the flow field of a combustor with triple swirlers

Abstract

This paper conducts a numerical study on the characteristics of mean flow field of a combustor with triple swirlers with focus on the effect of turbulence models on the central recirculation zone (CRZ). By comparing numerical results with high-speed photography experiment, it is found that k-ε RNG model can better predict the flow field characteristics than k-ε realizable and k-ω SST model. the CRZ length and expansion angle obtained by k-ε RNG model are consistent with experiments, and k-ε Realizable model are relatively close to it, while k-ω SST model is quite different from the two others. The results predicted by k-ω SST have much higher backflow strength and pressure gradient. The study is of great significance to reasonably choice turbulent mode to predict swirling flow in a combustor.