ABSTRACT
Combustion is at the heart of the energy conversion process in most transportation and power generation systems, and is likely to remain so for the foreseeable future. Combustion invariably occurs in turbulent environments, which involves a complex coupling between fluid dynamics, chemical kinetics and molecular transport phenomena. This coupling is a multi-scale process which makes it very critical to understand the fine-scale phenomena in order to design effectively for desired large-scale operating characteristics. First principles-based Direct Numerical Simulations (DNS) is one methodology of simulating turbulent combustion where all the continuum scales are sufficiently resolved. However, the multi-scale nature implies that DNS of turbulent combustion is not feasible without high performance computing. Even
of turbulent combustion has only been able to achieve conditions that are one generation removed from those in real devices, which makes it essentially an exascale-class problem. Nonetheless, petascale DNS provide a wealth of information and fundamental insight in canonical configurations that is invaluable in developing and assessing models which enable engineering design of combustion systems such as internal combustion engines and gas turbine combustors.
