FAQ

Turbulent combustion corresponds to a series of physical and chemical processes that take place when fuel and oxidizer burn in a turbulent flow environment. This involves a wide range of length and time scales related to chemical reactions (100’s species and reactions may be present and may not always be known), turbulent mixing and molecular diffusion. The full spatial and temporal resolution of turbulent combustion is still beyond reach for practical engineering systems. This is where the challenging tasks of experimental characterization and simulation come into play.

A good turbulent combustion model must be able to mimic the coupled effect of turbulent fluctuations on the chemical species reaction rates, and species production/destruction with corresponding heat release rate on the turbulent flow.

Beyond the theoretical development of a turbulent combustion model, a successful model implementation is closely linked to leading edge numerical techniques in Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD).

Defined by Cecile Devaud, Turbulent Combustion Modeling Expert

Cecile Devaud is a professor in Mechanical and Mechatronics Engineering. She is also a member of Waterloo Engineering’s Fire Research Group and the Waterloo Institute for Sustainable Energy. Her research group focuses on Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) for turbulent reacting flows. Her interests lay in developing and implementing new mathematical models for problems related to turbulent mixing, flame stabilization and emissions. Applications are diverse; ranging from aero and automotive engines to fire scenario analysis. More recently, some research activities have been devoted to numerical simulations of two-phase flows and compartment fires related to the nuclear industry.

More about Prof. Devaud

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