Our turbulent combustion case studies are completed in conjunction with partners from industry, government, and other researchers to ensure we find the right solutions. Our Mechanical and Mechatronics Engineering labs and the wider University of Waterloo often partner together to bring the right expertise and research. Find out more, if you'd like to partner with the Turbulent Combustion Modeling Lab.
Turbulent combustion in aerospace
Our lab is working towards the development of novel turbulent combustion models including finite rate detailed chemistry, spray for liquid fuels, turbulent mixing, soot formation, and radiation. We have built upon our initial development for methane air turbulent jet flames progressing towards realistic aerospace application conditions with Jet fuel A, spray, soot, radiation, and high pressure.
Turbulent combustion in power generation
We have made the significant achievement of demonstrating that our newly derived turbulent combustion model, Conditional Source term Estimation (CSE), could be applied to realistic conditions including the effects of finite-rate chemistry. Our developments and simulations are available in both Reynolds Averaged Navier Stokes equation (RANS) and Large Eddy Simulation (LES) codes for fully premixed, stratified (premixed flame propagation in a reactive mixture of varying equivalence ratios), non-premixed and partially-premixed turbulent combustion with good predictions for the main variables (temperature and species concentrations) compared to available experimental data.
Turbulent combustion in the automotive industry
Our group conducted several studies related to the effect of hydrogen added to the combustion process on atmospheric emissions and autoignition. The aspects of improved turbulent mixing modeling including differential diffusion and detailed chemistry-turbulence interactions have been examined with different mathematical models.
Emerging clean combustion technologies
Moderate or Intense Low-oxygen Dilution (MILD) combustion is a promising combustion technique that includes hot exhaust gas recirculation back into the combustion chamber. It can result in high thermal efficiency with low levels of nitric oxides (NOx). In our research, use of Large Eddy Simulation (LES)-Doubly Conditional Source-term Estimation (DCSE) to simulate flames that mimic the MILD combustion process, brought clear improvement (on the order of 15%) in the predictions of temperature and species concentration compared to results from Reynolds Averaged Navier Stokes (RANS)-DCSE, and Eddy Dissipation Concept (EDC) which is commonly used in the industry.
Oxyfuel combustion and carbon storage
Combustion of carbon-based fuels remains an important energy generation method. In this context, it remains important to reduce harmful atmospheric combustion emissions, including carbon dioxide (CO2), carbon monoxide (CO), nitrous oxides (NOx) and sulphur oxides (SOx). One promising method is Moderate or Intense Low-oxygen Dilution (MILD) oxyfuel combustion. In contrast to common combustion technologies using air and fuel for the reactants, oxyfuel combustion involves oxygen (O2) only, without the nitrogen from the air, diluted in CO2 from the exhausts, burning with the fuel.
The design of gas fireplaces must address significant issues due to the balance that needs to be reached between providing heat to the home efficiently, displaying visually appealing flames, and emitting low atmospheric pollutants. Gas fireplaces aim at providing two utilities to the customer, i) the heating value that is delivered to the enclosed space and ii) its aesthetic through the overall design of the fireplace and the luminous flame generated during the combustion process, without any compromise for safety, energy efficiency, and atmospheric pollution.
House and industrial fire risks
Fire performance of materials and wall systems are critical issues that need to be carefully addressed to minimize losses and property damage in the event of a fire. As a result, building products act as barriers to the spread of fire, resulting in a significant increase in valuable time for the safe evacuation of occupants and limiting material damage. In addition to thermal insulation capabilities, wall assembly materials need to show improved fire performance, particularly with respect to their fire-resistance rating.
These case studies are only several of our projects. There are many more types of opportunities and case studies. If you'd like to discuss partnering or sponsoring a research project in Turbulent Combustion Modeling or would like more details: