Numerical Simulation of Confined Flares

Recently, a new configuration of oil well flares is becoming to be largely adopted: The flame fully develops inside a cylindrical tube open at the top. Design of such appliance is mostly based on empirical knowledge. This work reports on the detailed modelling and numerical simulations of a confined flare, to investigate the possibility of optimization of geometric and combustion parameters. The numerical model is based on the LES approach developed at NIST and implemented in the open source code FDS. The unsteady structures of the thermo-fluid dynamic fields are reproduced as some of the most important operating conditions are varied.