Large-eddy simulations of the non-reactive flow in the Sydney swirl burner

This paper presents a numerical investigation using large-eddy simulation. Two isothermal cases from the Sydney swirling flame database with different swirl numbers were tested. Rational grid system and mesh details were presented firstly. Validations showed overall good agreement in time averaged results. In medium swirling case, there are two reverse-flow regions with a collar-like structure between them. The existence of strong unsteady structure, precessing vortex core, was proven. Coherent structures are detached from the instantaneous field. Q-criterion was used to visualize vorticity field with distinct clear structure of vortice tubes. Dominating spatial–temporal structures contained in different cross sections were extracted using proper orthogonal decomposition. In high swirling case, there is only one long reverse-flow region. In this paper, we proved the capability of a commercial CFD package in predicting complex flow field and presented the potential of large eddy simulation in understanding dynamics.