ENGINEERING AND CFD

Today, car manufacturers rely on CFD tools to design and optimise spark-ignition engines. However, current models of turbulent combustion—which are built based on the assumptions of the flamelet regime—lose their predictivity when used to simulate a highly diluted or ultra-lean combustion involving high turbulent intensities. Yet the combustion in a diluted boosted spark-ignition engine shifts from the flamelet to the thin reaction zone (TRZ) regime. This research project performed direct numerical simulations of premixed C₈H₁₈/air statistically flat flame interacting with a turbulent flow field. Results were analysed to develop a combustion model suitable for combustion in the TRZ regime based on the formalism of the coherent flame model.