Statistics conditioned to isoscalar surfaces in highly turbulent premixed reacting systems
Journal article, 2019

The paper aims at clarifying some issues associated with evaluation of surface-averaged quantities in Direct Numerical Simulation (DNS) of a turbulent reacting flow. For a quantity ϕ(t, x) averaged over an isosurface c(t,x)=c^ of a reaction progress variable c, there exist at least two different definitions of surface averages; an area-weighted surface average 〈ϕ〉 s | c^,t and an unweighted surface average 〈ϕ〉 v | c^,t . These two fine-grained averages can also be extended to coarse-grained surface averages 〈ϕ〉 S | c^,ϵ,t and 〈ϕ〉 V | c^,ϵ,t over an interval of c^≤c(t,x)≤c^+ϵ. In a highly turbulent medium, the difference 〈ϕ〉 s −〈ϕ〉 v between the area-weighted and unweighted surface averages can be significant for most quantities ϕ of basic interest. The sign of this difference depends on the sign of the correlation between ϕ and |∇c|, can be opposite for different ϕ or even for different isosurfaces of the same scalar field ϕ. For a quantity ϕ that can become singular in the zero-gradient points |∇c|(t,x)=0, its unweighted or area-weighted surface averages can still be bounded. The difference between area-weighted and unweighted surface averages of 1/|∇c| or |∇c| is relevant to explaining the well-known, but still challenging controversy between available data on the influence of turbulence on the local flame thickness.

Turbulent reacting flow

DNS

Conditioned statistics

Author

Rixin Yu

Lund University

Andrei Lipatnikov

Combustions and Sprays

Computers and Fluids

00457930 (ISSN)

Vol. 187 69-82

Subject Categories

Tribology

Paper, Pulp and Fiber Technology

Fluid Mechanics and Acoustics

DOI

10.1016/j.compfluid.2019.04.017

More information

Latest update

8/22/2022