Seminar: Direct Numerical Simulations (DNS) of Turbulent Reacting Flows: An Introduction

Abstract 
In the current energy climate with dwindling amounts of natural resources and increasingly more stringent emissions regulations, there is an urgent need for the design of more efficient and environmentally friendlier energy technologies. The flow in devices such as internal combustion engines, gas-turbine combustors et c. is often turbulent and reacting. The non-linear nature of the Navier-Stokes equations which describe such flows allows the analytical determination of important variables (temperature, pressure, emissions) only in very idealised situations, in simple geometries, and with specific initial and boundary conditions. Large-scale practical Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulations of such flows thus become imperative for the development of such devices. Accurate CFD can be used as an alternative to expensive, and often dangerous experiments. DNS in particular, resolves all length and time scales on fine meshes. DNS is thus used in order to develop turbulence and combustion sub-models which are then used in practical, larger-scale simulations. This talk will focus on DNS of such flows with an emphasis on the difficulties associated with reducing the chemical complexity for computationally feasible simulations. 

About the Speaker
Dr. Nikolaou received his undergraduate (MEng, BA) and graduate (PhD) degrees from Cambridge University in Mechanical/Aerospace engineering. During his PhD Dr. Nikolaou developed computationally efficient and robust reduced chemical kinetics mechanisms for the combustion of multi-component alternative fuels, and conducted massively parallel direct simulations of turbulent flames using these mechanisms. Following his graduate studies, Dr. Nikolaou joined Schlumberger Gould Research as a research scientist where he worked on the modelling and simulation of twophase flows. Dr. Nikolaou worked as a lecturer at Strathclyde University-his work focusing on turbulence and combustion sub-model development for Large Eddy Simulations (LES). Just recently, Dr. Nikolaou joined the Cyprus Institute as a computational scientist (CASTORc).

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