Prediction of Soot in a Rich–Quench–Lean Burner Using a Semidetailed JetA-1 Chemistry

This work proposes a methodology to include accurate kinetics for soot modeling taking into account real fuel complexity in large eddy simulation (LES) of aeronautical engines at a reasonable computational cost. The methodology is based on the construction of an analytically reduced kinetic mechanism describing both combustion and gaseous soot precursors growth with sufficient accuracy on selected target properties. This is achieved in several steps, starting from the selection of the detailed kinetic model for combustion and soot precursors growth, followed by the determination of a fuel surrogate model describing the complex real fuel blend. Finally, the selected kinetic model is analytically reduced with the code arcane while controlling the error on flame properties and soot prediction for the considered fuel surrogate. To perform all evaluation and reduction tests on canonical sooting flames, a discrete sectional method (DSM) for soot has been implemented in cantera. The resulting code (cantera-soot) is now available for the fast calculation of soot production in laminar flames for any fuel. The obtained reduced kinetic scheme is finally validated in a rich–quench–lean (RQL) burner of the literature in terms of soot prediction capabilities by comparison of LES coupled to the Lagrangian soot tracking (LST) model with measurements. Results show a significant improvement of the soot level prediction when using the reduced more realistic kinetics, which also allows a more detailed analysis of the soot emission mechanisms. This demonstrates the gain in accuracy obtained with improved reduced kinetics and validates the methodology to build such schemes.