Effects of Differential Diffusion on the Stabilization of Unsteady Lean Premixed Flames Behind a Bluff-Body

Two-dimensional direct numerical simulations were conducted to investigate the effects of differential diffusion on flame stabilization and blow-off dynamics of lean premixed hydrogen–air and syngas–air flames stabilized on a meso-scale bluff-body in a square channel. The unity Lewis number for all species was imposed to isolate the effects of differential diffusion. Four sets of simulation cases were conducted. Two different inflow temperature with unity Lewis number were applied to examine distinct levels of hydrodynamic instability. Each unity Lewis number case was compared with the non-unity Lewis number case to investigate how differential diffusion affects the overall flame responses, instabilities, and blow-off mechanism. For all cases, the overall flame dynamics were observed in several distinct modes as the inflow velocity approaches blow-off limit. One of the primary effects of unity Lewis number was an increased level of hydrodynamic instability due to the lower flame temperature and thus a lower density ratio. The lower gas temperature also led to a weakening of the re-ignition of the quenched local mixture by the product gas entrainment. The combined effects were manifested as suppression of the re-ignition events, leading to a revised conclusion that the ultimate blow-off behavior at high velocity conditions are mainly controlled by the onset of local extinction.