UK Consortium on Turbulent Reacting Flows (UKCTRF)

Lead Research Organisation: Queen Mary University of London
Department Name: School of Engineering & Materials Scienc

Abstract

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Description A group of leading academics from fifteen United Kingdom institutions have been joined by internationally recognised experts to form the UK Consortium on Turbulent Reacting Flows (UKCTRF). As a consortium, they will make a focussed effort to address the global and UK challenges of energy efficiency, environmental friendliness and high-fidelity fire safety. This consortium was launched in January 2014 and it will run until January 2019. Thus, it is still early for this consortium to deliver substantial key findings and research outcomes, but the research currently under way will address the following objectives in the near future: -World-leading computational research on turbulent reacting flows in the UK using HPC. - DNS of premixed, non-premixed, stratified flames and particle-laden turbulent reacting flows. -Utilisation of physical insight obtained from DNS to develop high-fidelity models for RANS and LES simulations. -Highly parallelised RANS/LES codes with high-fidelity combustion models which can contribute routinely to the design of highly-efficient, environmentally-friendly IC engines, gas turbines and reliable improved fire-safety measures. -Making the high-fidelity computational tools available to UK industries so that they can be used to design a new generation of combustion devices to exploit the expanding world-wide energy market and contribute to the UK economy. -Creating a forum for collaborative and complementary turbulent reacting flow research in the UK -A platform to share HPC expertise and sustain internationally-competitive UK computational reacting flow research. -To support both externally funded (e.g. EU projects and industrial) projects and internal (e.g. university PhD) projects, which do not have dedicated HPC support of their own. -Development of highly-skilled man-power in the form of RAs and PhD students, who in turn are expected to contribute positively to the UK economy and UK turbulent reacting flow research for several years to come. -To develop a forward-looking collaborative software development strategy to efficiently exploit future HPC hardware.
Exploitation Route UKCTRF will provide a platform for a large number of research-active UK-based combustion scientists who will benefit from the stimulating and collaborative environment it offers. The consortium will manage the HPC resources on behalf of its members, reducing the risk of not using the resource and eliminating the need to apply individually which will simplify EPSRC's workload in dealing with individual applications for computing resources. By pooling computing resources together and allocating them whenever individual needs arise, the national HPC facilities will be used more efficiently. By working collaboratively in a consortium the members will also be able to reduce duplication and tackle grander challenges than any one individual can attempt. The proposed consortium will offer both fundamental physical understanding and improved modelling methodologies for turbulent reacting flows. The knowledge gained from the research activities will contribute to the design cycle of new generation energy-efficient and environmentally-friendly IC engines and gas turbines and minimise the effects of atmospheric chemical pollution, accidental releases, fires and explosions. Benefits accrued from the research activities in this consortium will contribute to all areas of reacting flow analysis and combustion modelling. The research outcomes will be disseminated through participation of the consortium members in international conferences (e.g. International Combustion Symposium, European Combustion Meeting, Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) meeting, ASME Gas Turbine meetings etc.) and their publication in reputed scientific journals (e.g. Combustion and Flame, Physics of Fluids etc.). The research will also be presented by the members in the meetings of the British Combustion Institute and the Institute of Physics to attract attention from the automotive, gas turbine and fire-safety industries in the UK. The DNS and LES databases resulting from the project will be made available to other interested researchers upon request. A website for data-exchange and documentation, and specific results will be made available for public download. The RAs and PhD students will also benefit greatly from the annual review meetings and the proposed workshops, which will give them excellent networking opportunities to forge future collaborations with UKCTRF members who are the UK's leading computational combustion experts. This will not only be beneficial for the learning experiences of RAs and PhD students but also will have an impact on recruitment with the opportunity for industrial representatives to see the latest work of many talented researchers at UKCTRF events.
Sectors Aerospace, Defence and Marine,Agriculture, Food and Drink,Chemicals,Energy,Environment,Manufacturing, including Industrial Biotechology,Transport
 
Description This grant was part of 'The UKCTRF consortium', which lasted between 01 June 2017 and 31 March 2019 at Queen Mary University of London (QMUL). At QMUL, the research is focussed on clean energy utilisation from biogas and biomass gasification. A thorough understanding on the fuel variability effects of biogas and bio-syngas has been achieved, including uncertainty quantification of the fuel variability effects, which can lead to effective fuel management in practical applications. The research impact includes: (1) Prediction of the combustion process with variable fuel constituents is essential for the design of cost-effective operations and monitoring of combustors using biogas and bio-syngas. (2) Provision of results that can be directly linked to the industrial application of biogas and bio-syngas combustion provided the much-needed scientific knowledge for wider utilisation of bioenergy in the relevant industrial sector. (3) The project results can assist the economic analysis, the risk assessment and uncertainty analysis for the utilisation of bioenergy. (4) The deployment of technology on energy utilisation from biogas and biomass gasification has important implications in both ensuing the long-term sustainable energy supply and addressing the environmental concerns. Overall, an integrated mapping between the combustion characteristics and the fuel composition has been delivered, which could lead to further exploitations by relevant industrial companies in the energy sector. Based on the research outcomes, international collaborations are also established, which will lead to global impact in the area of renewable bioenergy utilisation.
First Year Of Impact 2017
Sector Aerospace, Defence and Marine,Agriculture, Food and Drink,Chemicals,Energy,Manufacturing, including Industrial Biotechology,Transport
Impact Types Societal