GPU-accelerated Large Eddy Simulation of turbulent stratified flames with machine learning chemistry

Abstract: Stratified premixed combustion, known for its capability to expand flammability limits and reduce overall-lean combustion instability, has been widely adopted to comply with increasingly stringent environmental regulations. Numerous numerical simulations with different combustion models and mesh resolutions have been conducted on laboratory-scale flames to further understand the stratified premixed combustion. However, the trade-off between the high-fidelity and low computational cost for simulating laboratory-scale flames still remains, particularly for those combustion models involving direct coupling of chemistry and flow. In the present study, a GPU-based solver is employed to solve partial differential equations and calculate the thermal and transport properties, while an artificial neural network (ANN) is introduced to replace reaction rate calculation. Particular emphasis is placed on evaluating the proposed GPU-ANN approach through the large eddy simulation of the Cambridge stratified flame. The simulation results show good agreement for the flow and flame statistics between the GPU-ANN approach and the conventional CPU-based solver with direct integration (DI). The comparison suggests that the GPU-ANN approach can achieve the same level of accuracy as the conventional CPU-DI solver. In addition, the overall speed-up factor for the GPU-ANN approach is over two orders of magnitude. This study lays the potential groundwork for fully resolved laboratory-scale flame simulations based on detailed chemistry with much more affordable computational cost.