Assumed PDF modelling and PDF structure investigation using finite-rate chemistry (Q979507)

Summary: An assumed probability density function (PDF) approach is used for the simulation of turbulent high speed combustion with finite-rate chemistry. The PDFs employed are a clipped Gaussian distribution for temperature and a joint multi-variate \(\beta \)-distribution for an arbitrary number of species mass fractions. The definition of both PDFs is based on higher order moments obtained from additional transport equations. In the present work, a transport equation for the variance of temperature and the sum of species mass fraction variances is solved. The numerical approach is compared with experimental data of a Mach 2 supersonic hydrogen-air diffusion flame. The focus of this paper is on the investigation of the marginal PDFs of temperature and species molar fractions at representative spatial positions. Moreover, two-dimensional marginal PDFs of pairs of species mass fractions are compared with experimental results. It is shown that the assumed PDF approach achieves a good agreement with experimental data concerning first and second moments and that even the shape of the PDF is met relatively well.