A multilevel local mesh projection method for low Mach number reactive flows

The isobar approximation for the System of the balance equations of mass, momentum, energy and chemical species is a suitable approximation to represent low Mach number reactive flows. In this approximation, which neglects acoustics phenomena, the mixture is hydrodynamically incompressible and the thermodynamic effects lead to an uniform compression of the System. We present a novel numerical scheme for this approximation. An incremental projection method, which uses the original form of mass balance equation, discretizes in time the Navier-Stokes equations. Spatial discretization is achieved through a finite volume approach on MAC-type staggered mesh. A higher order decentered scheme is used to compute the convective fluxes. We associate to this discretization a local mesh refinement method, based on Flux Interface Correction technique. A first application concerns a forced flow with variable density which mimics a combustion problem. The second application is natural convection with first small temperature variations and then beyond the limit of validity of the Boussinesq approximation. Finally, we treat a third application which is a laminar diffusion flame. For each of this test problems, we demonstrate the robustness of the proposed numerical scheme, notably for the density spatial variations. We analyse the gain in accuracy obtained with the local mesh refinement method. (author)