Numerical simulation of the interaction between turbulence and radiation in reactive flows

The interaction between turbulence and radiation (TRI) in reactive flows has been demonstrated experimentally, theoretically and numerically, and results from the highly non-linear coupling between fluctuations of radiation intensity and fluctuations of temperature and chemical composition of the medium. The instantaneous and the time-averaged form of the radiative transfer equation (RTE) are presented, and the TRI effects resulting from time-averaging are discussed. Methods to account for TRI in practical calculations are surveyed, and works where such methods have been employed are reviewed. These include both decoupled and coupled fluid flow/radiative transfer calculations. It is shown that the solution of the RTE using instantaneous scalar data is the most accurate way to deal with TRI, but it is computationally prohibitive for coupled problems. Hence, this approach has been mainly used to calculate the radiation intensity along lines of sight. The generation of time series of instantaneous scalar data may be accomplished using stochastic or deterministic models, which are also surveyed. Coupled fluid flow/radiative transfer problems are generally solved using the time-averaged form of the RTE or the Monte Carlo method, and rely on the optically thin fluctuation approximation, which neglects the correlation between fluctuations of the absorption coefficient and fluctuations of the radiation intensity. Experimental data and numerical calculations demonstrate that turbulent fluctuations may significantly increase the mean spectral radiation intensity in both non-luminous and luminous flames. Turbulent fluctuations contribute to decrease the flame temperature below the level observed without fluctuations, particularly for optically thick flames. The net radiative power and the fraction of radiative heat loss increase due to TRI, particularly in the case of optically thin flames. Recent direct numerical simulations provide additional insight on the role of different correlations responsible for TRI, and on how they are influenced by the optical thickness of the medium. (C) 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.