Isolating effects of large and small scale turbulence on thermodiffusively unstable premixed hydrogen flames

Abstract

Lean turbulent premixed hydrogen/air flames have substantially increased flame speeds, commonly attributed to differential diffusion effects. In this work, the effect of turbulence on lean hydrogen combustion is studied through Direct Numerical Simulation using detailed chemistry and detailed transport. Simulations are conducted at six Karlovitz numbers and four integral length scales. A general expression for the burning efficiency is proposed which depends on the conditional mean chemical source term and gradient of a progress variable, and the amount of superadiabatic burning. At a fixed Karlovitz number, the normalized turbulent flame speed and area both increase almost linearly with the integral length scale ratio. The effect on the mean source term profile is minimal, indicating that the increase in flame speed can solely be attributed to the increase in flame area. At a fixed integral length scale, both the flame speed and area first increase with Karlovitz number before decreasing. The qualitative observations and trends do not change when Soret effects are neglected. Specifically, neglecting Soret diffusion is shown to reduce the flame speed, area, and burning efficiency. At higher Karlovitz numbers, the diffusivity is enhanced due to penetration of turbulence into the reaction zone, significantly dampening differential diffusion effects.Novelty and SignificanceLean premixed hydrogen flames are subject to thermodiffusive instabilities, which can lead to system level instabilities such as flashback. A comprehensive study of the thermodiffusively unstable turbulent flames with detailed chemistry and detailed transport (including Soret diffusion) was conducted across a wide range of turbulent intensities and integral length scales. Varying these two parameters independently was necessary to isolate the effects of large- and small-scale turbulence. Using these results, we propose a general expression for the burning efficiency to explain the relationship between the turbulence intensity, flame speed, and flame area. This work is an important step in developing predictive models which can aid in the design of practical combustion devices.