High fidelity modeling of flare combustion and emission detection

The combustion of hydrocarbons by industrial flares emits greenhouse gases into the atmosphere along with trace amounts of ozone-forming highly-reactive volatile organic compounds and human carcinogens. Continuous and autonomous monitoring of flare emission is challenging due to low species concentrations and varying environmental conditions. We outline the development of a novel combination of modeling and laboratory measurements to ascertain the optimal combination of detectors to monitor the ozone-forming compounds and human carcinogens. The modeling component couples a high-fidelity computational fluid dynamic model of the combustion process with a first-principles radiation transport model for remote detection. This model provides a consistent and complete description of both the combustion and detection process. Predictions made by the model will be tested in an instrumented and controlled flare facility, established at the Air Force Institute of Technology. We outline the coupling of the computational fluid dynamic code (ARCHES), developed by the University of Utah, with the radiation transport model (SAMM®) and provide results from the composite forward model. We then outline the details of the retrieval algorithm used to interpret laboratory measurements.