Turbulence effects on chemical reactions in smog chamber flows

Turbulent mixing effects on the reaction rate of a non-premixed flow are presented for a moderately slow second-order irreversible chemical reaction. The turbulent mixing process leads to inhomogeneities in the concentration of the reactants. Chemical reactions are normally highly non-linear and large errors can result from using average concentrations in the computation of mean reaction rates. A brief review of the literature on this problem and its application areas is made with particular emphasis placed on near isothermal flows where the fluctuation in the reaction rate constant can be neglected. The reaction between mixing air jets containing dilute nitric oxide, NO, and ozone, O₃, is studied in a large Turbulent Smog Chamber (TSC) under conditions of high Reynolds number, three-dimensional flow. The measured reactant concentrations, obtained with good time and space resolution, are used to investigate the effects of the reactant species concentration fluctuations on the mean reactant species concentration field through their contribution to the mean reaction rate. Two flow geometries have been studied: two opposed jets issuing into a large chamber and a plume-like source issuing into a turbulent background flow. A three-dimensional finite-difference computation has been carried out for the flow in the chamber using the k-ε-g model of turbulence and mixing. The reacting species concentration field is calculated by considering the transport of a ‘perturbation variable’ equal to the mean of the difference between the species concentration and its corresponding fast chemistry value. A closure for the mean chemical reaction rate based on this quantity is presented and its experimental validation discussed.