A new compact active turbulence generator for premixed combustion: Non-reacting flow characteristics

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel compact active turbulence generator with bow-tie shaped blades, capable of producing high-intensity turbulence suitable for premixed combustion research, and characterizes its flow properties compared to traditional methods.

Contribution

The paper presents a new active turbulence generator design and provides detailed flow characterization, demonstrating its superior turbulence intensity and energy dissipation properties over existing generators.

Findings

Centerline velocity fluctuations reach about 1.8 m/s.

Kinetic energy decay follows a -1.0 to -1.3 power law.

Small eddies dissipate energy faster than in other generators.

Abstract

A new compact active turbulence generator is developed, tested, and characterized, which extends the capabilities of such generators used in turbulent premixed combustion research. The generator is composed of two blades that resemble the shape of two bow-ties. Hot-wire anemometry and high-speed imaging are performed to characterize the non-reacting flow produced by the generator and the blades dynamics, respectively. Two mean bulk flow velocities of 5.0 and 7.0 m/s are examined. For comparison purposes, in addition to the developed generator, tests are also performed for a free jet as well as one and two perforated plates. The results show that the centerline root mean square velocity fluctuations can become about 1.8~m/s, which is several folds larger than that in the literature for reacting flows generated by active grids. For the newly developed device, the power-law decay of the one-dimensional kinetic energy is -1.0 and -1.3 for the mean bulk flow velocities of 5.0 and 7.0 m/s, respectively. The normalized energy dissipation rate is smallest for the newly developed device, while the energy dissipation rate is the largest. The spectral analysis of the velocity data does not show dominant frequencies equal to the blades rotation frequencies; and, the one dimensional kinetic energy and dissipation spectra follow -5/3 and 1/3 power-law relations. It is shown that, the small eddies produced by the newly developed device dissipate the turbulent kinetic energy faster than those corresponding to the rest of the tested turbulence generators.