Ignition of hydrogen-air mixing layer in turbulent flows

Autoignition of a hydrogen-air scalar mixing layer in homogeneous turbulence is studied using direct numerical simulation (DNS). An initial counterflow of unmixed nitrogen-diluted hydrogen and heated air is perturbed by two-dimensional homogeneous turbulence. The temperature of the heated airstream is chosen to be 1100 K, which is substantially higher than the crossover temperature at which the rates of the chain-branching and termination reactions are equal. Three different turbulence intensities are tested in order to assess the effect of the characteristic flow time on the ignition delay. For each condition, a simulation without heat release is also performed. The ignition delay determined with and without heat release is shown to be almost identical up to the point of ignition for all of the turbulence intensities tested, and the predicted ignition delays agree well within a consistent error band. It is also observed that the ignition kernel always occurs where hydrogen is focused, and the peak concentration of HO₂ is aligned well with the scalar dissipation rate. The dependence of the ignition delay on turbulence intensity is found to be nonmonotonic. For weak to moderate turbulence, the ignition is facilitated by turbulence via enhanced mixing, while for stronger turbulence, whose timescale is substantially smaller than the ignition delay, the ignition is retarded due to excessive scalar dissipation, and hence diffusive loss, at the ignition location. However, for the wide range of initial turbulence fields studied, the variation in ignition delay due to the corresponding variation in turbulence intensity appears to be quite small.