A comparison of entrainment velocity and displacement speed statistics in different regimes of turbulent premixed combustion

Abstract The statistics of entrainment velocity, defined as the displacement speed of an enstrophy isosurface, which can be taken to be the interface between turbulent/non-turbulent regions, have been analysed using a Direct Numerical Simulation database of statistically planar H2-air flames with a range of different Karlovitz numbers. It has been found that the component of the entrainment velocity arising from molecular dissipation plays a leading order role for all values of Karlovitz number, whereas the relative importance of the baroclinic torque and dilatation rate weakens with increasing Karlovitz number. By contrast, the relative contribution of the entrainment velocity component arising from vortex-stretching strengthens with increasing Karlovitz number Ka. The mean entrainment velocity remains positive for the case representing the corrugated flamelets regime (i.e. Ka