Modeling the displacement speed in the

flame surface density method for turbulent

premixed flames at high pressures
Cite as: Phys. Fluids 33, 045118 (2021); https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0045750
Submitted: 29 January 2021 . Accepted: 25 March 2021 . Published Online: 13 April 2021

Shiming Zhang (张师茗 ), Zhen Lu (卢臻 ), and Yue Yang (杨越 )

COLLECTIONS

Paper published as part of the special topic on In Memory of Edward E. (Ted) O'Brien

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Phys. Fluids 33, 045118 (2021); https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0045750 33, 045118

© 2021 Author(s).
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Modeling the displacement speed in the flame

surface density method for turbulent premixed
flames at high pressures
Cite as: Phys. Fluids 33, 045118 (2021); doi: 10.1063/5.0045750
Submitted: 29 January 2021 . Accepted: 25 March 2021 .
Published Online: 13 April 2021

Shiming Zhang (张师茗),1 Zhen Lu (卢臻),1 and Yue Yang (杨越)2,a)

AFFILIATIONS
1
State Key Laboratory for Turbulence and Complex Systems, College of Engineering, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China
2
State Key Laboratory for Turbulence and Complex Systems, College of Engineering, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China and
CAPT and BIC-ESAT, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China

Note: This paper is part of the special topic, In Memory of Edward E. (Ted) O'Brien.
a)
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed: yyg@pku.edu.cn

ABSTRACT
We propose a model of the local displacement speed for the large-eddy simulation (LES) of turbulent premixed combustion with the flame
surface density (FSD) method. This model accounts for flame stretch and curvature effects in order to improve the prediction of LES–FSD
for turbulent premixed flames with the non-unity Lewis number at high pressures. The proposed model is validated by a priori and a posteri-
ori tests, with the direct numerical simulation (DNS) and LES–FSD of statistically planar turbulent premixed flames of lean hydrogen at
1 and 10 atm and a range of turbulence intensities. The a priori test confirms that the proposed model accurately estimates the negative cor-
relation of the displacement speed and the flame curvature. In the a posteriori test, the comparison of DNS and LES–FSD results demon-
strates that the proposed model improves the prediction on the turbulent burning velocity and the turbulent flame thickness, compared with
those from the existing displacement–speed model. The stretch effect in the present model leads to the rise of the turbulent burning velocity
and the suppression of the “bending” phenomenon in LES–FSD, consistent with the DNS result.
Published under license by AIP Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0045750

I. INTRODUCTION
Turbulent premixed flame is one of the fundamental phenomena
in turbulent combustion. It plays an important role in clean and effi-
cient energy utilization, especially for low-emission engine designs.1,2
The displacement speed sd, i.e., the propagation speed of a flame front
relative to the convective flow of adjacent gas,3,4 is crucial in many
modeling approaches for turbulent premixed flames, e.g., the flame
surface density (FSD) method.5,6 Moreover, sd can be measured in
experiments, so it is widely employed to characterize turbulent pre-
mixed flames, such as counterflow, low-swirl, spherical, and V-shaped
flames.1
In a one-dimensional freely propagating laminar premixed flame,
sd is directly related to the laminar flame speed via the density ratio.
For turbulent premixed flames in the corrugated flamelet regime, it is
assumed that the laminar flame thickness is smaller than the
Kolmogorov scale. Thus, the entire flame structure is embedded within
a locally quasi-laminar flow field, and the laminar burning velocity
remains well defined. Under such conditions, the propagation effect of
sd is dominant over curvature and flame stretch effects, so the approxi-
mation of one-dimensional flamelets is still suitable for modeling
flames in weak turbulence.5
However, the local displacement speed in the thin reaction zone
regime is strongly influenced by the flame stretch and curvature.5,7
Several studies of the direct numerical simulation (DNS) on turbulent
premixed combustion confirmed that the linear correlation between
the local displacement speed and the flame stretch is still a good
approximation.5,8 Additionally, effects of differential diffusion on the
local sd can be notable due to the influence of detailed transport.9
Abbasi-Atibeh and Bergthorson10,11 found that the local sd increases
apparently with decreasing of the Lewis number (Le) for Le < 1.
A number of efforts have been made to quantify the complex
dependence of sd on the flame stretch and curvature in turbulent pre-
mixed flames. Based on the theoretical analysis of laminar stretched
flames, a linear relation between sd and flame stretch with the
Markstein length can be obtained.12 Considering further experimental
and numerical observations on nonlinear dependence of sd on the

Phys. Fluids 33, 045118 (2021); doi: 10.1063/5.0045750 33, 045118-1

Published under license by AIP Publishing
 Physics of Fluids ARTICLE scitation.org/journal/phf

flame stretch and curvature, various algebraic models have been pro-
posed and validated against DNS data.8,13 Additionally, Bray and
Cant14 employed a flamelet library to estimate the stretch effects on
turbulent flame propagation. Then, the tabulation approach consider-
ing filter effects was developed for the large-eddy simulation (LES).15
On the other hand, most modeling studies of sd are based on a priori
analysis and restricted to flames with Le close to unity.
where dij is the Kronecker delta function and ni is the component of
the unit vector n ¼ rc=jrcj normal to the flame surface. The terms
on the RHS of Eq. (3) represent the subfilter convection, strain-rate
effects, flame propagation effects, and flame curvature effects,
respectively.
Following Ref. 17, these terms are modeled as

Recently, Lu and Yang16 demonstrated that the local displacement @ 
  @  t @R

 hui iA  u~i R ¼ ; (4)
speed of lean hydrogen turbulent premixed flames with Le ¼ 0:32 is @xi @xi ScR @xi
  pffiffiffi
significantly enhanced due to the flame stretch at high pressures. They
 @ui @ u~i /Ck k
characterized this effect by a stretch factor I0 and found I0  3 at dij  ni nj R ¼ ðdij  nij Þ Rþ R; (5)
@xj A @xj D
10 atm, which is much larger than the general choice I0 ¼ 1 for a
majority of fuels and conditions.12 Therefore, the flame stretch effects @
 @

 hsd ni iA R ¼  hsd iA hni iA R ; (6)
should be properly modeled for the accurate estimation of the displace- @xi @xi
ment speed in the modeling of turbulent premixed flames.  
@ni @hni iA aN bs0L R2
In the present study, we propose a model of sd considering the sd R ¼ hsd iA R ; (7)
@xi A @xi 1  ~c
curvature and flame stretch effects. The model performance is assessed
via a priori and a posteriori tests using DNS and LES-FSD calculations where  t is the turbulent viscosity, ScR is the Schmidt number of R, b
of the same statistically planar turbulent flames. The outline of this ¼ 319 and / ¼ 117 are model constants, Ck ¼ 0:75 exp ½1:2=
paper is as follows. The modeling approach is introduced in Sec. II. ðu0D =s0L Þ0:3 ðD=d0L Þ2=3 is an efficiency
ffi 0 function
pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
23
with the subgrid
0
Simulation setups and numerical methods are then presented in velocity fluctuation uD ¼ 2k=3, sL and dL are the laminar flame
0

Sec. III. The model assessment is discussed in detail in Sec. IV. Some speed and the thermal thickness of the unstrained laminar flame,
conclusions are drawn in Sec. V. respectively, k is the subgrid turbulent kinetic energy, D is the
filter size, aN ¼ 1  hnk iA hnk iA is an orientation factor,17,24
II. MODELING APPROACH
nij ¼ hni iA hnj iA þ 13 dij ð1  hnk iA hnk iA Þ is a tensor in the modeling
A. Flame surface density method of the strain rate,18 and
The premixed combustion can be generally characterized by the
1 @~c
progress variable c  ðT  Tb Þ=ðTb  Tu Þ,5 where subscripts b and u, hni iA ¼  (8)
respectively, denote the quantities in unburnt reactants and burnt R @xi
products, and T is the temperature. In the context of LES, the FSD is the modeled surface-averaged normal vector.17
method17 has been widely adopted to close the nonlinear source term
in the three-dimensional transport equation for the Favre-averaged B. Modeling of the displacement speed
progress variable as
In Eqs. (2) and (3), the displacement speed sd plays a significant
@
q u~i ~c
q~c @
@ role in the LES-FSD approach. In particular, the propagation and cur-
þ þ
u~i c  u~i ~c Þ ¼ hqsd iA R;
ðq (1)
@t @xi @xi vature terms involving sd are marked in Eq. (3), and they are modeled
where t is the time, xi and ui with i ¼ 1, 2, 3 are the coordinates and in Eqs. (6) and (7), respectively. The definition of sd implies the
velocity components, respectively, q is the density, R  jrcj is the decomposition5
generalized FSD,12
q and ~q denote the regular and Favre filterings of a
n  rðqDn  rT Þ þ x_ T
variable q, respectively, and hqiA  qjrcj=jrcj denotes the average sd ¼  Dj; (9)
over an isosurface of c. qjrTj
The right-hand side (RHS) of Eq. (1) describes that each flame where x_ T is the thermal source term, D is the molecular diffusivity,
surface moves at a local propagation speed sd, where the surface- and j ¼ r  n is the flame curvature. In an unstretched one-
averaged mass flux is typically modeled by17–19 dimensional laminar flame with j ¼ 0, the first term on the RHS of
Eq. (9) equals to qu s0L =q, where qu is the density of unburned mixture,

hsd iA ;
hqsd iA ¼ q (2) so Eq. (9) becomes
and R can be evaluated by algebraic models18 or by solving its trans- qu s0L
port equation.20,21 Since the hydrodynamic instability at high pres- sd ¼ : (10)
q
sures may not be well characterized by algebraic models,22 we
calculate R by solving the FSD transport equation For turbulent premixed combustion in the regime of corrugated
flamelets, curvature effects are not important compared to the quasi-
  laminar propagation.5,25 Assuming the one-dimensional laminar
@R @ u~i R @ 
 
 @ui
þ ¼ hui iA  u~i R þ dij  ni nj R flamelet on the turbulent flame front and neglecting the curvature
@t @xi @xi @xj A
term, Eq. (10) is applied to estimate
@
 @ni
 hsd ni iA R þ hsd i R; (3)
@xi @xi A ð1Þ qu s0L
|fflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflffl{zfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflfflffl} |fflfflfflfflfflffl{zfflfflfflfflfflffl} hsd iA ¼ ; (11)
Propagation Curvature

q

Phys. Fluids 33, 045118 (2021); doi: 10.1063/5.0045750 33, 045118-2

Published under license by AIP Publishing
 Physics of Fluids ARTICLE scitation.org/journal/phf

where the superscript (1) denotes the first hsd iA model in the present TABLE II. Parameters of unstretched laminar flames in DNS cases.
study. This model has been validated in turbulent premixed flames
with weak stretch and curvature effects26 and widely adopted in FSD p ðatmÞ s0L ðm=sÞ d0L ðlmÞ  ðm2 =sÞ F
Tpeak ðKÞ
modeling17,18 due to its simplicity. On the other hand, the local dis-
1 0.931 365.4 1:94  105 1294.0
placement speed in the thin reaction zone regime is strongly influ-
10 0.348 46.4 1:94  106 1505.4
enced by the flame stretch and curvature. Recent a priori studies13,27
also confirmed that the model in Eq. (11) is insufficient for modeling
premixed combustion in strong turbulence.
From Eq. (9), we propose a new model turbulence (HIT) to assess the hsd iA models in Eqs. (11) and (12)
using a priori and a posteriori tests.
ð2Þ qu s0L Is The present DNS and LES cases have the same parameters for
hsd iA ¼  DhjiA ; (12)


q turbulence and flames. The unburned reactant is the lean hydrogen/air
mixture with the unburned temperature Tu ¼ 300 K and the equiva-
where the superscript (2) denotes the second hsd iA model in this study, lence ratio 0.6. Two pressure conditions 1 atm and 10 atm are consid-
and Is is a factor characterizing the effects of flame straining on the ered. Parameters of the unstretched laminar premixed flames are listed
flame speed. This strain factor is modeled by16 peak
in Table II, including s0L ; d0L , and the temperature TF at the maxi-
sL ðK Þ mum fuel consumption rate, which are obtained by the simulation of
Is ¼ ; (13) one-dimensional freely propagating flames.
s0L For each pressure condition, four cases with different turbulence
where sL ðKÞ is the consumption speed of a stretched laminar flame in intensities are conducted. In these cases, u0 =s0L varies from 5 to 20,
terms of the Karlovitz factor K. This model implicitly assumes that the while lt =d0L is kept as unity. In total, we conducted eight DNS and eight
comsumption speed sc in the subgrid has a delta distribution.12 For LES cases for two pressure conditions. Table III lists the parameters of
given turbulence intensity u0 and integral length scale lt, we estimate the turbulent premixed flames, including u0 =s0L ; lt =d0L , the turbulence
!2 Reynolds number Re0 ¼ ðu0 =s0L Þðlt =d0L Þ, the Damk€ohler number Da

1 3 1
¼ ðlt =u0 Þ=ðd0L =s0L Þ, and the Karlovitz number Ka ¼ ðu0 =s0L Þ2 ðd0L =lt Þ2 .
0:157 p 2 u0
Re2 ;
1
K¼ (14) From the regime diagram of turbulent premixed combustion in 5
Le p0 s0L
Fig. 1, all the present cases are in the thin-reaction-zone regime.
where p is the pressure, p0 ¼ 1 atm is a reference pressure, and
Re ¼ u0 lt = is the turbulent Reynolds number with the kinematic vis- B. Numerical methods
cosity . The model Eq. (14) is extended from that in Bradley28 by In the DNS, the transport equations of mass, momentum, spe-
incorporating the effects of Le and pressure. In the implementation, cies, and temperature are solved in the low-Mach-number limit.29 In
sL ðKÞ is obtained from the calculation of a laminar premixed counter- the LES, the filtered equations of continuity and momentum conserva-
flow flame with a given strain rate at ¼ Ks0L =d0L . tion, together with the Favre-filtered transport equation of ~c in Eq. (1)
ð2Þ
The parameters in the modeling of hsd iA are listed in Table I. and the transport equation of R in Eq. (3), are solved with the dynamic
The large variation of Is with pressure, i.e., Is  1:11 for p ¼ 1 atm and Smagorinsky models for subgrid stresses, turbulent kinetic energy, and
Is  2:1  2:5 for p ¼ 10 atm, implies that Is has an impact on model- scalar fluxes.30
ing of the turbulent burning velocity at high pressures.16 For both DNS and LES, the transport equations are solved on a
staggered grid using the NGA code.31 The momentum equations are
III. SIMULATION OVERVIEW discretized with a second-order, centered, kinetic-energy conservative
A. Case parameters finite difference scheme. The third-order bounded quadratic-upwind
biased interpolative convective (QUICK) scheme32 and the third-
We carry out a series of DNS and LES cases of statistically planar
order weighted essentially nonoscillatory (WENO) scheme33 are
turbulent premixed flames propagating in homogeneous isotropic
employed for treating convection terms in the scalar transport equa-
ð2Þ tions in DNS and LES, respectively. A semi-implicit Crank–Nicolson
TABLE I. Parameters in the modeling of hsd iA .
scheme34 is applied for the time advancement of the transport equa-
tions. The Strang splitting algorithm is employed for transport-
p ðatmÞ u0 =s0L Is sL ðKÞ ðm=sÞ K chemistry coupling in DNS.35,36 The stiff solver DVODE37 is applied
1 5 1.114 1.038 1.351
1 10 1.133 1.056 3.822 TABLE III. Parameters of turbulent premixed flames in DNS and LES cases.
1 15 1.110 1.034 7.021
u0 =s0L lt =d0L Da Ka Re0
1 20 1.077 1.003 10.810
10 5 2.116 0.736 6.228 5 1 0.2 11.18 5
10 10 2.431 0.846 17.616 10 1 0.1 31.63 10
10 15 2.516 0.875 32.364 15 1 0.067 58.09 15
10 20 2.502 0.870 49.827 20 1 0.05 89.44 20

Phys. Fluids 33, 045118 (2021); doi: 10.1063/5.0045750 33, 045118-3

Published under license by AIP Publishing
 Physics of Fluids
FIG. 1. Parameters (circles) of all cases in the regime diagram of turbulent pre-
mixed combustion.
to the chemistry substep in DNS with a 9-species, 23-reaction detailed
mechanism for hydrogen combustion.38
C. Setup of computational grids
In DNS and LES, computational domains are cuboid with inlet
and outlet boundary conditions in the streamwise x-direction. The
inlet bulk flow is imposed by the velocity fluctuation from statistically
stationary HIT. Periodic boundary conditions are applied in lateral y-
and z-directions. The computational domain size is Lx  Ly  Lz with
Ly ¼ Lz ¼ L ¼ 5:3lt ; Lx ¼ nx L, and nx ¼ 12 for DNS and nx ¼ 24
for LES. The computational domains are discretized on uniform grids
of Nx  Ny  Nz , with Nx ¼ nx N and Ny ¼ Nz ¼ N.
The detailed parameters for DNS and LES grids are listed in
Table IV. For DNS, N is determined by two criteria, kmax g  1:539
and at least 24 points in d0L for resolving small-scale turbulence and
flames, respectively. Consequently, N ¼ 128 applies for most cases in
Table III except N ¼ 256 for the case of u0 =s0L ¼ 20 and p ¼ 1 atm. For
LES, all the cases are discretized with N ¼ 16. The LES grid resolves at
least 90% of the turbulent kinetic energy in the a priori test for non-
reacting HIT with the corresponding DNS. The timesteps are selected
to ensure the Courant-Friedrichs-Lewy (CFL) numbers less than 0.5
and 0.3 for DNS and LES, respectively.
The flow field is initialized by the velocity field obtained from a
separate DNS or LES of nonreacting statistically stationary HIT, and
the scalar field is initialized as an unstretched laminar flame. A linear
forcing method40 is employed for both DNS and LES within the sub-
TABLE IV. Grid parameters in DNS and LES cases.
N nx
DNS 128 or 256 12
LES 16 24
Phys. Fluids 33, 045118 (2021); doi: 10.1063/5.0045750
Published under license by AIP Publishing
ARTICLE scitation.org/journal/phf
domain from 0:05Lx to 0:75Lx to maintain the turbulence intensity.
This linear forcing has been validated in DNS16,41 and LES.42,43
Statistics of each case are calculated over a period of at least 15Te
after reaching the statistically stationary state, where Te ¼ lt =u0
denotes the eddy turnover time. The grid setup and simulation accu-
racy have been extensively validated in the previous studies.16,41
IV. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
A. A priori test
In the LES-FSD approach, the key models of hsd iA in Eqs. (11)
and (12) are evaluated by a priori tests. For the DNS data, all the quan-
tities are calculated at the flame surface represented by the isothermal
surface of T ¼ Tpeak
F
, which marks the location of the reaction layer of
the flame with the maximum fuel consumption rate.44 This surface
corresponds to isosurfaces of c ¼ 0.648 for p ¼ 1 atm and c ¼ 0.784 for
p ¼ 10 atm. In our implementation, these quantities are first calculated
in the entire computational domain and then interpolated to the flame
surface45 using the marching cubes algorithm for extracting
isosurfaces.
The displacement speed in the DNS with detailed chemistry and
species transport is evaluated as46
X
ns
r  ðkTÞ  cp;m jm  rT þ cp x_ T
m¼1
sd ¼ ; (15)
qcp jrTj
where k is the thermal conductivity, ns is the number of species in the
mixture, cp is the heat capacity of mixture, cp;m is the heat capacity,
and jm is the diffusion flux of the m-th species.
In order to examine the dependence of sd on the flame curvature
suggested by Eq. (9), we present scatter plots of the normalized
density-weighted displacement speed qsd =ðqu s0L Þ against the normal-
ized curvature jd0L in Fig. 2, at four conditions with two pressures of 1
atm and 10 atm and two turbulence intensities of u0 =s0L ¼ 5 and 20.
The scatter points are color-coded by the joint probability density
function (PDF) of qsd and j. For comparison, this figure also plots a
linear fit of qsd =ðqu s0L Þ in terms of jd0L from DNS (dashed lines), and
ð1Þ ð2Þ
the model results of hsd iA (dotted lines) in Eq. (11) and hsd iA (solid
lines) in Eq. (12) with D ! 0 for the LES–FSD.
Although the scattering level of DNS data points grows with the
turbulence intensity, the scatterplot indicates a general dependence of
the displacement speed on the flame curvature, and the negative corre-
lation of sd and j agrees with Eq. (9). Regarding the form of the model
ð1Þ
hsd iA in Eq. (11), the modeled displacement speed does not depend
on the flame curvature, resulting in a constant value of q
hsd iA in
ð2Þ
Fig. 2. On the contrary, the model hsd iA in Eq. (12) implies a linear
dependence of hsd iA on the curvature. The slope of – D in Eq. (12)
represents the curvature effect and agrees with the linear fit of DNS
data in Fig. 2.
In addition, the modeled strain factor Is includes the thermal-
diffusive effects in the modeling of hsd iA , which is important for turbu-
lent premixed flames with non-unity Le or at high pressures. As shown
CFL in the zoom-in subplot in Fig. 2, the averaged qsd =ðqu s0L Þ at j ¼ 0 is
away from unity for the lean hydrogen flames. For the present model,
0.5 the intercept of lines at j ¼ 0 represents the value of Is. With the aid of
ð2Þ
0.3 Is modeled by Eq. (13), the estimation of hsd iA (solid line) agrees with
the DNS fit (dashed line) in the subplot.
33, 045118-4
 Physics of Fluids ARTICLE scitation.org/journal/phf

FIG. 2. Comparisons of the scatter points

with the linear fit (black dashed line)
obtained from the DNS and the values
ð1Þ
calculated by models hsd iA in Eq. (11)
ð2Þ
(blue dotted line) and hsd iA in Eq. (12)
(red solid line) for the LES–FSD.

Based on the above a priori analysis, it is expected that our pro- u0 =s0L ¼ 20, along with the isocontour lines for ~c ¼ 0.1 (purple) and
ð2Þ
posed model hsd iA for the displacement speed can improve the accu- 0.9 (yellow). The turbulent flame thickness, or the thickness of the tur-
racy of LES–FSD on the lean hydrogen turbulent premixed flames. bulent flame brush, is roughly estimated by the averaged distance
between the two iso-lines. For the DNS, the flame surface is strongly
wrinkled, so that the turbulent flame brush spans much wider than d0L .
B. A posteriori test ð2Þ
For the LES–FSD, the turbulent flame thickness with hsd iA is similar
ð1Þ
In the a posteriori test, we compare LES–FSD results with the two to that in the DNS, while the thickness with hsd iA is significantly
displacement–speed models with DNS results to further assess the per- larger than that in the DNS.
formance of model prediction. The instantaneous contours of R from Among the statistics of turbulent premixed combustion, the tur-
DNS and LES are depicted in Fig. 3 for the case with p ¼ 10 atm and bulent burning velocity sT is of vital importance.5 In the DNS, sT with
the consumption-based definition is calculated by the integration of
the fuel reaction rate over the computational domain.16,41 In the
LES–FSD, sT can be evaluated as47
ð
1
sT ¼ hqsd iA RdV; (16)
qu AL X
where AL ¼ Ly  Lz is the planar laminar flame surface and X is the
entire computational domain. Furthermore, the turbulent flame area is
obtained by
ð
AT ¼ RdV: (17)
X
FIG. 3. Instantaneous contours of R and contour lines of ~c ¼ 0:1 (purple) and 0.9 ð1Þ
(yellow) at u0 =s0L ¼ 20 and p ¼ 10 atm in the DNS and the LES–FSD with different For the model hsd iA in Eq. (11), Eqs. (16) and (17) imply the
hsd i models. Damk€ohler's first hypothesis48 sT =s0L ¼ AT =AL . On the other hand,

Phys. Fluids 33, 045118 (2021); doi: 10.1063/5.0045750 33, 045118-5

Published under license by AIP Publishing
 Physics of Fluids
Lu and Yang16 demonstrated that I0 plays an important role in
enhancing sT of the lean hydrogen turbulent premixed flames at high
ð2Þ
pressures. Since the present model hsd iA explicitly incorporates the
strain factor, it is expected to improve the prediction of sT in the
LES–FSD. We remark that the curvature effect is generally negligible
on sT for this configuration, because the curvature distribution is
nearly symmetric with the zero mean.16,49
Figure 4 compares sT =s0L and AT =AL obtained from the DNS
ð1Þ
(dashed lines) and the LES-FSD with models hsd iA (dashed-dotted
ð2Þ
lines) and hsd iA (solid lines) at p ¼ 1 and 10 atm and u0 =s0L from 5 to
20. The (0, 1) point in each plot corresponds to the laminar flame state
with u0 =s0L ¼ 0. For the cases with p ¼ 1 atm; sT =s0L calculated from
ð1Þ ð2Þ
the DNS and the LES–FSD with hsd iA and hsd iA has a generally good
ð2Þ
agreement, whereas AT =AL obtained with hsd iA is slightly smaller than
ð1Þ
that with hsd iA . These differences are small as Is is close to unity for the
lean hydrogen mixture at 1 atm. For the cases with p ¼ 10 atm, Is of the
lean hydrogen mixture rises, so that the modeling of hsd iA becomes cru-
ð2Þ
cial. We observe that sT calculated with the model hsd iA is larger than
ð1Þ
that with the model hsd iA and is closer to the DNS result.
As reported in the previous DNS of lean hydrogen turbulent pre-
mixed flames at different pressure conditions,16 the “bending” phe-
nomenon41,50,51 of sT is suppressed at high pressures. For the present
DNS, sT has a very mild growth with u0 =s0L at strong turbulence for
p ¼ 1 atm, and sT at p ¼ 10 atm keeps increasing over a range of
Phys. Fluids 33, 045118 (2021); doi: 10.1063/5.0045750
Published under license by AIP Publishing
ARTICLE scitation.org/journal/phf
ð1Þ
turbulence intensities in Fig. 4. For the LES–FSD with hsd iA , the
ð1Þ
“bending” trends are similar at p ¼ 1 atm and 10 atm, because hsd iA
does not include the dependence of flame characteristics on the pres-
sure. It leads to the notable under-estimation of sT at 10 atm for LES-
ð1Þ ð2Þ
FSD with hsd iA . By contrast, the modeled hsd iA includes the
thermal-diffusive effects at different pressures via Is, so the “bending”
at large u0 =s0L is diminished with the growth of Is at high pressures.
ð2Þ
Thus, the LES–FSD with hsd iA is able to reproduce the suppression
of the “bending” at elevated pressures.
Although the present displacement speed model improves the
prediction of the turbulent burning velocity by enhancing Is in the
source term of Eq. (1), the value of sT is still under-estimated in Fig. 4,
which appears to be caused by the under-estimated flame area. We
ð2Þ
argue that Is in hsd iA enlarges the source term of Eq. (1), but in the
mean time the effective speed ratio u0 =sL ¼ u0 =ðs0L Is Þ is reduced by Is.
As the turbulent flame area increases with u0 =sL ,52 the application of
Is > 1 leads to the reduction of AT. Specifically, for the case with
u0 =s0L ¼ 20 at p ¼ 10 atm, we find that u0 =ðs0L Is Þ  10 for the model
ð2Þ
hsd iA in LES appears to reduce AT almost by half. The reduction of
AT partly cancels out the enhancement of Is in the source term, making
the prediction of sT still lower than the DNS values, which needs addi-
tional improvement in the future work.
In order to show the consistent model performance and reveal
the effects of hsd iA on LES–FSD modeling, we further examine the
modeled propagation and curvature terms in Eq. (3) for FSD
FIG. 4. Comparisons of sT =s0L and
AT =AL calculated from the DNS and the
ð1Þ ð2Þ
LES–FSD with models hsd iA and hsd iA
at various turbulence intensities and pres-
sures. Error bars represent the standard
deviation.
33, 045118-6
 Physics of Fluids
transport. The propagation term P  r  ðhsd iA hniA RÞ on the RHS
of Eq. (6) is directly related to the displacement speed. As there is no
other curvature-dependent factor in the model of Eq. (6), the curva-
ture effects on the averaged propagation term hPiyz cancel out each
other. Here, hqiyz denotes the average of a quantity q over the y–z
plane with an additional time average of q over a time period of 45Te
in the statistically stationary stage. Therefore, Is has a direct influence
on the magnitude of hPiyz . Figure 5(a) plots the profile of hPiyz
obtained from the DNS and the LES–FSD with two hsd iA models at
p ¼ 10 atm and u0 =s0L ¼ 10. With Is  2:5 larger than unity, the prop-
ð2Þ
agation term in LES-FSD is enhanced with the model hsd iA . This also
ð2Þ ð1Þ
contributes to a larger sT computed with hsd iA than that with hsd iA
in Fig. 4. In addition, the two terms on the RHS of Eq. (12) denote the
strain and curvature effects, respectively. In the modeling of P, the cur-
vature effect r  ðDhjiA hniA RÞ only shows a moderate oscillation
very close to the flame front in Fig. 5(b), so the strain effect is domi-
nant in P at high pressures.
Another important term Cmean  hsd iA Rr  hniA in the FSD
transport equation, the first term on the RHS of Eq. (7), represents the
mean-curvature effect and involves the modeled hsd iA . The averaged
mean-curvature term hCmean iyz obtained from the DNS and the LES
with different hsd iA models at p ¼ 10 atm and u0 =s0L ¼ 10 is plotted in
ð1Þ
Fig. 6(a). For the model hsd iA ; hsd iA is always positive, so the sign of
the mean-curvature term is the same as r  hniA , leading to positive
and negative hCmean iyz at the leading and trailing edges, respectively.
However, hsd iA and r  hniA have a negative correlation in the a priori
analysis in Fig. 2. Therefore, the mean-curvature term tends to be
Phys. Fluids 33, 045118 (2021); doi: 10.1063/5.0045750
Published under license by AIP Publishing
ARTICLE scitation.org/journal/phf
FIG. 5. (a) Comparison of hPiyz obtained
in the DNS and the LES–FSD with differ-
ent hsd iA models along the streamwise x
direction at p ¼ 10 atm and u0 =s0L ¼ 10,
as well as (b) the comparison for the cur-
vature contribution to hPiyz .
ð2Þ
negative in the DNS result. Since hsd iA incorporates the dependence
of hsd iA on the flame curvature, the modeled hCmean iyz qualitatively
agrees with the DNS result. Moreover, we find that the curvature effect
in the modeling of hsd iA has a notable negative contribution to Cmean
in Fig. 6(b). The estimation DhjiA Rr  hniA for this part of contri-
ð2Þ
bution from hsd iA qualitatively agrees with the DNS result.
V. CONCLUSIONS
We propose a model of the displacement speed for the LES–FSD
modeling of turbulent premixed flames with non-unity Le at a range
of pressures. Based on the definition of the displacement speed, this
model accounts for flame stretch and curvature effects, and the influ-
ence of chemistry and transport properties is included via the strain
factor calculated from a separate laminar flame simulation. The model
performance is assessed by a priori and a posteriori tests with a series
of DNS and LES-FSD cases of statistically planar turbulent premixed
flames of lean hydrogen at 1 and 10 atm and various turbulence
intensities.
In the a priori test, the DNS result confirms that the displacement
speed and the flame curvature have a negative statistical correlation in
the scatterplot. We demonstrate that this correlation is well approxi-
mated by our proposed model in Eq. (12) via the strain factor and a
linear function of the curvature.
In the a posteriori test, we compare the important statistics calcu-
lated from the DNS and the LES-FSD with different displacement-
speed models of the same flame. The predictions of the turbulent
flame thickness and the turbulent burning velocity are improved in
FIG. 6. (a) Comparison of hCmean iyz
obtained in the DNS and the LES–FSD
with different hsd iA models along the
streamwise x direction at p ¼ 10 atm and
u0 =s0L ¼ 10, as well as (b) the comparison
for the curvature contribution to hCmean iyz .
33, 045118-7
 Physics of Fluids
ð2Þ
the LES–FSD with the proposed model hsd iA , compared with the
ð1Þ
constant model hsd iA . In particular, the persistent growth of the local
sd at high pressures is reproduced via the modeled strain factor Is in
Eq. (13). This leads to the rise of the turbulent burning velocity and
the suppression of “bending” in LES–FSD, consistent with the DNS
result. The further comparison for the displacement-speed related
terms in the FSD transport equation shows that the averaged propaga-
tion and mean-curvatures terms calculated from the LES-FSD with
ð2Þ
hsd iA qualitatively agree with those calculated from the DNS, consis-
tent with the improved prediction of the turbulent burning velocity.
From the a priori and a posteriori tests, we demonstrate that the
proposed displacement–speed model is suitable for the LES–FSD of
turbulent premixed combustion at high pressures. The proposed
modeling method is expected to be applied to the simulation of practi-
cal turbulent premixed flames with various geometries in the future
work. Although the effects of the Lewis number are considered via the
strain factor in the present model for sd, the differential diffusion and
thermal-diffusive effects are not explicitly represented in the transport
equation of ~c and R, which requires further interrogation of DNS data-
set and investigation of LES-FSD modeling methods.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We gratefully acknowledge Caltech, the University of
Colorado at Boulder and Stanford University for licensing the NGA
code used in the present work. This work has been supported in
part by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant
Nos. 91841302, 11988102, 11925201, and 91541204) and the Xplore
Prize.
DATA AVAILABILITY
The data that support the findings of this study are available
from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.
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