Direct Numerical Simulations of Turbulent Lean Premixed Hydrogren Flames with Detailed Chemistry

When flows entering a flame front are turbulent, the laminar flame mode studied is replaced by a regime where turbulence and combustion interact.
Turbulent combustion is encountered in most practical combustion system such as rockets, internal combustion or aircraft engines, industrial burners and furnaces while laminar combustion applications are almost limited to candles, lighters and some domestic furnaces. A fundamental characteristic that distinguish premixed turbulent flames from diffusion flame is the presence of a clear interface that separates fresh and burnt gases; in addition, differently from the laminar case, the temporal scale of motions have to be compared with chemical temporal scale, since the dynamic of the flow is responsible for convection, stresses and strains of the flame structure.
Moreover, the interaction between combustion and turbulence causes an increased mixing between reactants and burnt gases along the flame front, so that the mass, momentum and heat release transport is enhanced. Another consequence of the mixing, at high Reynolds number and for temporal scales smaller than chemical ones, is the increased interactions between fresh and burnt gases.