In setting out to write this book, my main objective was to provide a reasonably complete introduction to computational models for turbulent reacting flows for students, researchers, and industrial end-users new to the field. The focus of the book is thus on the formulation of models as opposed to the numerical issues arising from their solution. Models for turbulent reacting flows are now widely used in the context of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) for simulating chemical transport processes in many industries. However, although CFD codes for non-reacting flows and for flows where the chemistry is relatively insensitive to the fluid dynamics are now widely available, their extension to reacting flows is less well developed (at least in commercial CFD codes), and certainly less well understood by potential end-users. There is thus a need for an introductory text that covers all of the most widely used reacting flow models, and which attempts to compare their relative advantages and disadvantages for particular applications.

The primary intended audience of this book comprises graduate-level engineering students and CFD practitioners in industry. It is assumed that the reader is familiar with basic concepts from chemical-reaction-engineering (CRE) and transport phenomena. Some previous exposure to theory of turbulent flows would also be very helpful, but is not absolutely required to understand the concepts presented. Nevertheless, readers who are unfamiliar with turbulent flows are encouraged to review Part I of the recent text Turbulent Flows by Pope (2000) before attempting to tackle the material in this book. In order to facilitate this effort, I have used the same notation as Pope (2000) whenever possible.