Numerical Simulation of a Confined Swirling Flow in a Model Gas Turbine Combustor

The present paper describes a numerical investigation of a confined swirling flow in a model combustion chamber. Two turbulence models, the standard k-e model and the Reynolds stress model (RSM) are employed for the flow predictions. Solutions to the two-dimensional axisymmetric incompressible Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes equations have been obtained by the Finite-Volume method. Comparisons of the present numerical predictions with the available experimental data reveal superiority of the RSM over the standard k-e model for prediction of swirling flows. For instance, RSM predicts the central toroidal recirculation zone well, but k-e does not.