The interaction of a premixed methane/air flame with a counter-rotating vortex pair is analyzed using a parallel low-Mach-number computational model that is based on a detailed C1C2 chemical mechanism. Attention is focused on the transient response of the heat release rate and the flame structure at the centerline of the vortex pair. Results are obtained for vortex pairs of different strengths under lean, stoichiometric, and rich conditions. For the range of vortex strengths considered, the computations indicate that the heat release rate in the rich flame decays significantly faster than in the stoichiometric flame; this behavior is consistent with recent experimental measurements. Meanwhile, the heat release rate in the lean flame decays at a slightly slower rate than in the stoichiometric flame. The transient response of flame radicals such as H, CH, OH, and HCO is also analyzed. The analysis reveals a complex nonlinear dependence of the transient structure on both the vortex strength and the stoichiometry.

The detailed dynamical response of flames in turbulent reacting flow involves a complex interaction between unsteady flow structures and flame chemistry. Two essential features of this interaction are the unsteady strain-rate and curvature disturbances to the reaction zone. In this work, the authors focus on a single flow length/time scale feature in two dimensions (2D), and its effect on a premixed flame for a range of mixture conditions. In particular, they study the interaction of a premixed freely propagating methane-air flame with a 2D counter-rotating vortex pair in an unbounded domain. In earlier work, they studied this flow using C1 kinetics, at stoichiometric conditions. Notable observations include the shift of the reaction zone into the products on the vortex-pair centerline, leading to depletion of H, O and OH, and the consequent general drop in reaction rates on the centerline flame segment. Curvature-induced focusing/defocusing effects were observed at the positively curved flame cusp, leading to modifications in internal transport fluxes of various species and radicals in the flame, and associated effects on H production and fuel consumption rates. These results were extended to more detailed kinetics, using other C1 and C2 mechanisms, which demonstrated the effect of choice of chemical mechanism on the observed transient flame response. The present study focuses on the dependence of the transient flame response on reactants mixture equivalence ratio. Two reactants mixture conditions are studied: case 1 is a stoichiometric conditions - equivalence ratio [Phi] = 1.0, and case 2 is rich at [Phi] = 1.2. In both cases, the reactants are 20% N2-diluted.

The MIT mission - "to bring together Industry and Academia and to nurture the next generation in computational mechanics is of great importance to reach the new level of mathematical modeling and numerical solution and to provide an exciting research environment for the next generation in computational mechanics." Mathematical modeling and numerical solution is today firmly established in science and engineering. Research conducted in almost all branches of scientific investigations and the design of systems in practically all disciplines of engineering can not be pursued effectively without, frequently, intensive analysis based on numerical computations.The world we live in has been classified by the human mind, for descriptive and analysis purposes, to consist of fluids and solids, continua and molecules; and the analyses of fluids and solids at the continuum and molecular scales have traditionally been pursued separately. Fundamentally, however, there are only molecules and particles for any material that interact on the microscopic and macroscopic scales. Therefore, to unify the analysis of physical systems and to reach a deeper understanding of the behavior of nature in scientific investigations, and of the behavior of designs in engineering endeavors, a new level of analysis is necessary. This new level of mathematical modeling and numerical solution does not merely involve the analysis of a single medium but must encompass the solution of multi-physics problems involving fluids, solids, and their interactions, involving multi-scale phenomena from the molecular to the macroscopic scales, and must include uncertainties in the given data and the solution results. Nature does not distinguish between fluids and solids and does not ever repeat itself exactly.This new level of analysis must also include, in engineering, the effective optimization of systems, and the modeling and analysis of complete life spans of engineering products, from design to fabrication, to possibly multiple repairs, to end of service.

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