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Turbulence–flame interactions in lean premixed hydrogen: transition to the distributed burning regime

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 May 2011

A. J. ASPDEN*
Affiliation:
Center for Computational Sciences and Engineering, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, 1 Cyclotron Road, MS 50A-1148, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA
M. S. DAY
Affiliation:
Center for Computational Sciences and Engineering, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, 1 Cyclotron Road, MS 50A-1148, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA
J. B. BELL
Affiliation:
Center for Computational Sciences and Engineering, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, 1 Cyclotron Road, MS 50A-1148, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA
*
Email address for correspondence: [email protected]
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Abstract

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The response of lean (ϕ ≤ 0.4) premixed hydrogen flames to maintained homogeneous isotropic turbulence is investigated using detailed numerical simulation in an idealised three-dimensional configuration over a range of Karlovitz numbers from 10 to 1562. In particular, a focus is placed on turbulence sufficiently intense that the flames can no longer be considered to be in the thin reaction burning regime. This transition to the so-called distributed burning regime is characterised through a number of diagnostics, and the relative roles of molecular and turbulent mixing processes are examined. The phenomenology and statistics of these flames are contrasted with a distributed thermonuclear flame from a related astrophysical study.

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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2011. This is a work of the U.S. Government and is not subject to copyright protection in the United States.

References

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