| Service oriented architectures are software configurations that combine loosely coupled network accessible services with client application logic to implement computational processes. A new method of performing thermochemical computation with emphasis in distributed chemical equilibrium is presented. Using W3C standardized Web Services to exchange structured thermochemical data encapsulated in SOAP messages, multiphase, complex equilibrium distributions can be computed and retrieved by third-party applications and coupled with existing thermofluid simulation codes. A unique method of computing equilibria is presented, based on first solving the primal constrained "linear" Gibbs free energy problem and then solving the primal constrained nonlinear problem using a Lagrangian formulation. Our application is validated by reproducing several cases involving the calculation of adiabatic flame temperature and equilibrium distribution. Using distributed thermochemical data services, we demonstrate how chemical equilibrium applications can be expanded, use different sets of thermodynamic data, and can execute in parallel using a job queuing and scheduling system. This capability can be integrated with existing computational thermofluids applications and we discuss one such coupling based on the control-volume formulation of Patankar and Spalding. A Web Services based community computing framework is presented and we discuss how this framework can be used to maintain thermochemical data. A numerical investigation of how flame shape evolves under varying opposing flow velocity from the quiescent environment of microgravity to blow-off extinction at very high velocity is discussed. Correlations of geometric attributes with known system parameters are given. Simplified ratios of flame height to pyrolysis length and flame height to length are derived. Our SOA based chemical equilibrium application and associated services for thermochemical data retrieval are accessible via http://chegs.sdsu.edu/. |
