Stretch Effects in Large Eddy Simulation of Turbulent Premixed Bunsen Flames

The stretch effects in large eddy simulation (LES) of a turbulent lean propane-air premixed Bunsen flame in the wrinkled flamelet regime are investigated. A simple approach to model the subgrid-scale flame stretch is proposed. It is based on the analysis which shows that, when the surface-filtered strain rate in a subgrid-scale stretch model is approximated using the volume-filtered velocity field solved for in LES, heat release and associated gas expansion in the filtered flame brush tend to artificially alter the wrinkling of resolved flame fronts. To minimize such artifacts, it is suggested that the volume-filtered strain rate on the unburned side of the filtered flame brush be used to approximate the surface-filtered strain rate and projected through the filtered flame brush. The results show the importance of mitigating the artificial heat release effects when considering the strain effects in LES. The relative importance of the curvature stretch is also investigated in terms of the mean and local effects. For a Bunsen flame with a positive Markstein number, the mean flame curvature effect tends to increase the total burning rate by enhancing the laminar flame speed near the flame tip, while the local flame curvature effect tends to decrease the total burning rate by suppressing the wrinkling of the resolved flames. It is found that the competition between the two makes the overall curvature effects not influence the total burning rate much for the flame investigated here, as compared with the strain effects.