The primary purpose of this study is to evaluate the ability of LES, with a turbulent combustion model based on steady flamelets, to predict the flame stabilization mechanisms in an industrial can combustor at full load conditions. The test case corresponds to the downscaled Siemens can combustor tested in the high pressure rig at the DLR. The effects of the wall temperature on the prediction capabilities of the codes is investigated by imposing several heat transfer conditions at the pilot and chamber walls. The codes used for this work are Alya and OpenFOAM, which are well established CFD codes in the fluid mechanics community. Prior to the simulation, results for 1-D laminar flames at the operating conditions of the combustor are compared with the detailed solutions. Subsequently, results from both codes at the mid-plane are compared against the experimental data available. Acceptable results are obtained for the axial velocity, while discrepancies are more evident for the mixture fraction and the temperature, particularly with Alya. However, both codes showed that the heat losses influence the size and length of the pilot and main flame.

The research leading to these results has received funding through the People Programme (Marie Curie Actions) of the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7, 2007-2013) under the grant agreement No. FP7-290042 for the project COPA-GT and the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Programme (2014-2020) and from Brazilian Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation through Rede Nacional de Pesquisa (RNP) under the HPC4E Project, grant agreement No. 689772. The authors thankfully acknowledge the computer resources, technical expertise and assistance provided by the Red Española de Supercomputación (RES).

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