The simulations presented here are based on a low Mach number formulation [10] of the reacting Navier-Stokes equations. The methodology treats the fluid as a mixture of perfect gases. We use a mixture-averaged model for differential species diffusion, which is critical to capturing the thermodiffusive behavior of lean hydrogen flames (see [11] for a complete discussion of this approximation). We ignore Soret, Dufour and radiative transport processes. A lean hydrogen-air inlet fuel mixture (=0.37) was modeled with the hydrogen sub-mechanism of GRI-Mech2.11; the transport coecients and thermodynamic relationships are obtained from EGLib [12].
The basic finite-volume numerical discretization [13] combines a symmetric operator-split treatment of chemistry and transport with a density-weighted approximate projection method to impose the evolution constraint. The resulting integration proceeds on the time scale of the relatively slow advective transport. Faster diffusion and chemistry processes are treated implicitly in time. This integration scheme is embedded in an adaptive mesh refinement algorithm based on a hierarchical system of rectangular grid patches. The data and work are apportioned over a parallel computing system using a coarse-grained load distribution strategy[14]. The complete integration algorithm is second-order accurate in space and time, and discretely conserves species mass and enthalpy.