Hybrid Method of Moments for modeling soot formation and growth

In this work, a new statistical model for soot formation and growth is developed and presented. The Hybrid Method of Moments (HMOM) seeks to combine the advantages of two moment methods, the Method of Moments with Interpolative Closure (MOMIC) and the Direct Quadrature Method of Moments (DQMOM), in an accurate and consistent formulation. MOMIC is numerically simple and easy to implement but is unable to account for bimodal soot Number Density Functions (NDF). DQMOM is accurate but is numerically ill-posed and difficult to implement. HMOM combines the best of both two methods to capture bimodal NDF while retaining ease of implementation and numerical robustness. The new hybrid method is shown to predict mean quantities nearly as accurately as DQMOM and high-fidelity Monte Carlo simulations. In addition, a model for combining particle coalescence with particle aggregation is presented and shown to accurately reproduce experimental measurements in a variety of sooting flames.