Computational Modeling of Turbulent Mixing of a Transverse Jet

Abstract

This paper presents numerical simulations of turbulent mixing of a jet in crossflow. The test case is chosen to resemble scalar mixing processes in the premixing zones of gas turbine combustion chambers. Steady and unsteady simulations employing three different computational approaches are presented: steady Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes, unsteady Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes, and scale-adaptive simulations. Presented results comprise the (time-averaged) profiles of flow velocities, turbulent kinetic energy of the flow, Reynolds stresses, passive scalar distribution, turbulent scalar fluxes, and the turbulent variance of the passive scalar. All presented results are directly validated against experimental data. Additionally, two parameter studies are presented. Both studies are related to the accuracy of the turbulent scalar mixing predictions for all used simulation methods. In the first study, the dependence of the scalar mixing predictions on the value of the turbulent Schmidt number is considered. In the second study, the dependence of the predicted turbulent scalar variance on the used modeling approach is analyzed.