Analysis of thermodiffusive instabilities in hydrogen/air premixed flames using a tabulated flamelet model

As a result of work carried out within HYINHEAT, we are pleased to share the peer-reviewed publication “Analysis of thermodiffusive instabilities in hydrogen/air premixed flames using a tabulated flamelet model”, published in the International Journal of Hydrogen Energy.

Abstract

The accurate simulation of hydrogen combustion is particularly challenging due to the intrinsic instabilities that can develop in premixed hydrogen flames. This study investigates the ability of a tabulated flamelet model incorporating detailed transport effects through mixture-averaged molecular diffusion to reproduce the propagation and structure of hydrogen/air premixed flames affected by thermodiffusive instabilities.

The performance of the model is evaluated against detailed chemistry calculations, considering both the linear and non-linear regimes of flame instability. The study also examines how pressure, temperature and mesh resolution affect the model predictions. The results show that thermodynamic conditions play an important role in the model’s ability to reproduce the characteristic range of unstable flame structures, with increased temperature or pressure improving its predictive capabilities under the investigated conditions.

In the non-linear regime, the model successfully reproduces the main global flame characteristics across the three conditions investigated, with relative errors below 10%. Overall, the study demonstrates that the proposed tabulated flamelet approach can capture the most relevant physical effects governing thermodiffusive instabilities in hydrogen flames while offering a substantially lower computational cost than detailed chemistry simulations.