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

Abstract: Preferential diffusion plays a critical role in the evolution of lean premixed hydrogen flames, influencing flame surface corrugation and overall flame behavior. Simulating such flames with tabulated chemistry (TC) methods remains challenging due to the complexity of flame dynamics. A detailed assessment of flamelet-based manifolds for capturing these dynamics is still needed. This work incorporates preferential diffusion via mixture-averaged molecular diffusion within TC to study the propagation and structure of freely propagating hydrogen flames influenced by intrinsic instabilities. Model performance is evaluated against detailed chemistry (DC) calculations, focusing on linear and non-linear regimes and sensitivity to pressure and temperature variations. The impact of mesh resolution on flame response is also examined to assess the method's capabilities without subgrid models. The linear regime is analyzed through the dispersion relation, revealing that higher temperature or pressure extends the range of wave numbers accurately predicted by the model, although some overprediction of flame wrinkling in stable regions is observed. The nonlinear regime is assessed by comparing global flame parameters and flame structure to reference solutions, showing that the model captures key flame descriptors with relative errors under 20%. Overall, the model effectively reproduces key effects governing flames with thermodiffusive instabilities, offering a viable alternative to DC at a significantly reduced computational cost.