Intrinsic instabilities of hydrogen and hydrogen/ammonia premixed flames: Influence of equivalence ratio, fuel composition and pressure

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Premixed lean hydrogen-air flames exhibit instabilities due to hydrodynamic instabilities but also thermo-diffusive instabilities. However, in the case of ammonia/hydrogen blends, the effect of ammonia addition on instabilities is still unclear. To investigate intrinsic instabilities in premixed ammonia/hydrogen-air flames, a parametric study of laminar premixed flames is performed for different fuel contents, from pure hydrogen (H2) to a blend of 40% of H2 and 60% of ammonia (NH3) in volume, equivalence ratios (0.4 to 1.0) and pressures (1 and 10 bar) to investigate thermo-diffusive instabilities. Numerical simulations using detailed chemistry are performed where an initial perturbation is set to disturb the planar flame front and to compute its growth rate. During the initial linear phase, the perturbation’s amplitude grows or decreases depending on the flame’s mixture propensity to be unstable or stable, respectively. At small times, the linear growth rate of the perturbation can be estimated and compared to theory. As expected, the maximum growth rate obtained in the linear phase depends on the mixture’s equivalence ratio, fuel ratio, and pressure. Ammonia addition leads to a reduced peak growth rate, likely due to lower reactivity leading to a higher Zel’dovich number. Very lean mixtures (equivalence ratios of 0.4 and 0.5) are thermo-diffusively unstable, regardless of the ammonia content, due to hydrogen’s preferential diffusion.