La combustion d’hydrocarbures représente encore aujourd’hui une part très majoritaire de la production d’énergie dans le monde, et en particulier dans l’industrie aéronautique. La plupart des brûleurs industriels sont alimentés par un carburant sous forme liquide, injecté directement dans la chambre de combustion, générant ainsi de fortes interactions entre le spray, l’écoulement turbulent et la flamme. Dans le but d’acquérir une meilleure compréhension de la structure complexe des flammes de spray, une étude numérique a été réalisée sur la configuration du brûleur diphasique KIAI, caractérisée de façon précise et complète expérimentalement. Une approche de type simulation des grandes échelles a été utilisée pour simuler la phase gazeuse tandis que la phase liquide était résolue selon un formalisme Lagrangien déterministe (LES-DPS). L’analyse détaillée de la structure de flamme de spray permet de mettre en exergue le rôle important de la combustion non prémélangée dans ce type de flamme. Cela a motivé dans une seconde étape le développement d’une nouvelle approche pour modéliser les flammes de diffusion turbulentes. Le modèle présenté s’appuie sur la réponse des flammes de diffusion laminaires au maillage, à l’étirement et au plissement. Le dégagement de chaleur global de la flamme a été analysé dans des configurations de complexité croissante, et la capacité du modèle à le décrire a été évaluée. / The combustion of hydrocarbons still represents a major part of the worldwide production of energy, especially in the aeronautical industry. Most industrial burners are fed with liquid fuel that is directly injected in the combustion chamber, generating a strong interaction between the spray, the turbulent flow and the flame. In order to provide a better understanding of turbulent spray flame complex structures, a numerical study has been performed on the two-phase flow burner KIAI which has been experimentally fully characterized. Numerical simulations consist of Large Eddy Simulation coupled to Discrete Particle Simulation for the dispersed phase (LES-DPS). A detailed analysis of the flame structure shows that non-premixed combustion plays an important role in this type of spray flame. This motivates, in a second step of the present work, the development of a new approach to model turbulent diffusion flames. The model is based on the response to the mesh, strain rate and wrinkling. The global flame heat release is analyzed through configurations of increasing complexity and the capacity of the model to describe it is evaluated.

Les limitations récentes imposées par ICAO-CAEP, qui règlent les émissions de NOx, mènent à l’implémentation du concept de combustion lean dans les moteurs aéronautiques. Du point de vue du design, il faudrait étudier de façon plus approfondie la combustion lean et donc la Computational Fluid Dynamics(CFD) peut être un outil essentiel à ce but. Plusieurs phénomènes sont impliqués et différentes stratégies de modélisation, avec des différences en termes de coûts de calcul, sont disponibles. Néanmoins, jusqu'à présent, peu d'outils numériques peuvent prendre en compte les effets de la préparation du combustible liquide dans les calculs réactifs. Les conditions limites d’atomisation sont normalement déterminées par des approches corrélatives qui ne couvrent pas toutes les conditions de fonctionnement et les caractéristiques géométriques des brûleurs aéronautiques. Cependant, comme on peut lire dans la première partie de ma thèse, où plusieurs études de cas de littérature sont analysées, l'impact de la préparation du combustible liquide peut être extrêmement important. Les considérations basées sur des approches corrélatives ne sont pas fiables. Des méthodes prédictives focalisées sur l'atomisation du combustible sont nécessaires. Cette activité de recherche vise donc à développer un outil numérique général, utilisable dans le domaine industriel et capable de modéliser la phase liquide de son injection jusqu'à la génération d'un spray dispersé. Le modèle ELSA (Eulerian Lagrangian Spray Atomization), basé sur une approche eulérienne dans la région dense et une lagrangienne dans la zone diluée, a été choisi à ce but. Le solveur traite le combustible liquide jusqu'à la génération d'une phase dispersée et prend en compte le processus d’atomisation par l'introduction de la densité d'interface liquide-gaz. Néanmoins, si on applique cette méthode dans un environnement réactif fortement turbulent comme un brûleur aéronautique on peut rencontrer plusieurs limites. Par conséquent, on a dédié une attention particulière tout d’abord à l'étude du terme de flux turbulent à l'intérieur de l'équation de la fraction volumique liquide. Cette quantité est d'une importance primaire pour un écoulement turbulent, avec des vitesses de glissement élevées entre ses phases. Une nouvelle fermeture de second ordre pour cette variable est proposée et validée sur un cas de jet en crossflow. Ensuite, pour gérer un environnement réactif, un nouveau modèle d'évaporation est intégré dans le code et évalué par rapport aux résultats expérimentaux. Enfin, une autre méthode de dériver la distribution de la taille des gouttes dans le contexte ELSA pour l'injection lagrangienne est présentée et validée avec des simulations DNS. Pour conclure, ce travail introduit une nouvelle méthode pour une description unifiée de la combustion et de l’atomisation dans les calculs CFD. L'approche proposée devrait conduire à une description complète de l'évolution du combustible et à une caractérisation plus pertinente de l'écoulement réactif. Plusieurs aspects qui sont également mis en évidence sont améliorables et peuvent offrir des suggestions pour d’ultérieurs travaux. / The recent limitations imposed by ICAO-CAEP, regulating NOx emissions, are leading to the implementation of lean burn concept in the aero-engine framework. From a design perspective, a depth insight on lean burn combustion is required and Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) can be a useful tool for this purpose. Several interacting phenomena are involved and various modelling strategies, with huge differences in terms of computational costs, are available. Nevertheless, up to now few numerical tools are able to account for the effects of liquid fuel preparation inside reactive computations. Spray boundary conditions are normally determined thanks to correlative approaches that are not able to cover the wide range of operating conditions and geometrical characteristics of aero-engine burners. However, as highlighted in the first part of the dissertation, where several literature test cases are analysed through numerical calculations, the impact of liquid preparation can be extremely important. Considerations based on correlative approaches may be therefore unreliable. More trustworthy predictive methods focused on fuel atomization are required. This research activity is therefore aimed at developing a general numerical tool, to be used in an industrial design process, capable of modelling the liquid phase from its injection till the generation of a dispersed spray subject to evaporation. The ELSA (Eulerian Lagrangian Spray Atomization) model, which is based on an Eulerian approach in the dense region and a Lagrangian one in the dilute zone, has been chosen to this end. The solver is able to deal with pure liquid up to the generation of a dispersed phase and to account for the breakup process through the introduction of the liquid-gas interface density. However, several limitations of such method arise considering its application in a highly swirled reactive environment like an aero-engine burner. Therefore, particular attention has been here devoted first to the study of the turbulent liquid flux term, inside the liquid volume fraction equation. This quantity is of paramount importance for a swirled flow-field, with high slip velocities between phases. A completely innovative modelling framework together with a new second order closure for this variable is proposed and validated on a literature jet in crossflow test case. Then, to handle a reactive environment, a novel evaporation model is integrated in the code and assessed against experimental results. Finally, an alternative way to derive the Drop Size Distribution (DSD) in ELSA context for the lagrangian injection is presented and assessed by means of Direct Numerical Simulations. Ultimately, this work introduces an innovative framework towards a uni- fied description of spray combustion in CFD investigations. The proposed approach should lead to a comprehensive description of fuel evolution in the injector region and to a proper characterization of the subsequent reacting flow-field. Several improvable aspects are also highlighted, pointing the way for further enhancements.

This thesis describes an experimental investigation of the response of lean turbulent swirling flames with different degrees of premixedness (i.e. different mixture patterns) to acoustic forcing using the same burner configuration and varying only the fuel injection strategy. Special emphasis was placed on the amplitude dependence of their response. Also, the behaviour of self-excited fully premixed flames was examined. kHz OH* chemiluminescence was used to study qualitatively the heat release response of the flames, while kHz OH Planar Laser Induced Fluorescence (PLIF) was employed to understand the response of the flame structure and the behaviour of the various parts of the flame. The Proper Orthogonal Decomposition (POD) method was used to extract the dominant structures of the flame and their periodicity. In the first part of the thesis, self-excited oscillations were induced by extending the length of the duct downstream of the bluff body. It was found that the longer the duct length and the higher the equivalence ratio, the stronger the self-excited oscillations were, with the effect of duct length being much stronger. The dominant frequencies of the system were found to increase with equivalence ratio and bulk velocity and decrease with duct length. For some conditions, three simultaneous periodic motions were observed, where the third motion oscillated at a frequency equal to the difference of the other two frequencies. A novel application of the POD method was proposed to estimate the convection velocity from the most dominant reaction zone structures detected by OH* chemiluminescence imaging. For a range of conditions, the convection velocity was found to be in the range of 1.4-1.7 bulk flow velocities at the inlet of the combustor. In the second part, the response of fully premixed, non-premixed with radial fuel injection (NPR) and axial fuel injection (NPA) flames was investigated and compared. All systems exhibited a nonlinear response to acoustic forcing. The highest response was observed by the NPR flame, followed by the fully premixed and the non-premixed with axial fuel injection flame. The proximity of forced flames to blow-off was found to be critical in their heat release response, as close to blow-off the flame response was significantly lower than that farther from blow-off. In the NPR and NPA systems, it was shown that the acoustic forcing reduced the stability of the flame and the stability decreased with the increase in forcing amplitude. In the fully premixed system, the flame area modulations constituted an important mechanism of the system, while in the NPR system both flame area and equivalence ratio modulations were important mechanisms of the heat release modulations. The quantification of the local response of the various parts of the flame at the forcing frequency showed that the ratio RL (OH fluctuation at 160 Hz to the total variance of OH) was greater in the inner shear layer region than in the other parts in the case of NPR and NPA flames. In fully premixed flames, greater RL values were observed in large regions on the downstream side of the flame than those in the ISL region close to the bluff body. The ratio of the convection velocity to the bulk velocity was estimated to be 0.54 for the NPR flame, while it was found to be unity for the respective fully premixed flame. In the last part of the thesis, the response of ethanol spray flames to acoustic oscillations was investigated. The nonlinear response was very low, which was reduced closer to blow-off. The ratio RL was the highest in the spray outer cone region, downstream of the annular air passage, while RL values were very low in the inner cone region, downstream of the bluff body. Unlike NPR and fully premixed flames, in case of spray and NPA systems, it was found that forcing did not affect greatly the flame structure. The understanding of the nonlinear response of flames with different degrees of premixedness in a configuration relevant to industrial systems contributes to the development of reliable flame response models and lean-burn devices, because the degree of premixedness affects greatly the flame response. Also, the understanding of the behaviour of forced spray flames is of great interest for industrial applications, contributing to the development of thermoacoustic models for liquid fuelled combustors. Finally, the estimation of the convection velocity is of importance in the modelling of self-excited flames and flame response models, since the convection velocity affects the flame response significantly.