Combustion and Flame 235 (2022) 111712

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Combustion and Flame

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/combustflame

A DNS study of extreme and leading points in lean hydrogen-air

turbulent flames - part II: Local velocity field and flame topology
HsuChew Lee a,b, Peng Dai a, Minping Wan a,b,∗, Andrei N. Lipatnikov c
a
Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Turbulence Research and Applications, Department of Mechanics and Aerospace Engineering, Southern University
of Science and Technology, Shenzhen 518055, China
b
Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Joint Laboratory for Data-Driven Fluid Mechanics and Engineering Applications, Southern University of Science and
Technology, Shenzhen 518055, China
c
Department of Mechanics and Maritime Sciences, Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenburg SE-412 96, Sweden

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Data obtained in recent direct numerical simulations (Lee et al.) of statistically one-dimensional and pla-
Received 22 March 2021 nar, lean complex-chemistry hydrogen-air flames characterized by three different Karlovitz numbers Ka
Revised 19 August 2021
ranging from 3 to 33 are further analyzed in order to explore local characteristics and structure of (i)
Accepted 21 August 2021
extreme points characterized by the peak (over the computational domain) Fuel Consumption Rate (FCR)
Available online 9 September 2021
or Heat Release Rate (HRR) and (ii) leading points that are also characterized by a high FCR or HRR, but
Keywords: advance furthest into unburned reactants. Results show that, on the one hand, common characteristics of
Hydrogen flame perturbations (curvature, strain and stretch rates, displacement speed) fluctuate significantly in the
DNS extreme or leading, FCR or HRR points and are different in different flames. Moreover, other two-point
Turbulent combustion local quantities such as the local gradients of combustion progress variables or species (e.g., the radical H)
Lewis number mass fractions are different in different flames. Therefore, a common simple configuration of a perturbed
Turbulent consumption speed
laminar flame cannot be used as a catchall model of the entire local structure of zones surrounding the
Diffusive-thermal effects
Leading point concept
discussed points at various Ka. On the other hand, single-point local characteristics (temperature, species
mass fractions, rates of their production) of the FCR extreme points are comparable in all three turbulent
flames and in the critically strained planar laminar flame. In particular, the FCRs in the extreme points
fluctuate weakly and are approximately equal to each other and to the peak FCR in the critically strained
laminar flame. The latter finding implies that (i) the maximum FCR evaluated in the critically strained
laminar flame could be used to characterize, in a first approximation, the local FCR in the extreme or
leading points in turbulent flames, thus, supporting the leading point concept, and (ii) almost the same
extreme FCR can be reached in substantially different local burning structures.
© 2021 The Combustion Institute. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction different conditions over decades, as reviewed elsewhere [5,6], see

The concept of global warming motivates rapidly growing in-
terest in utilizing hydrogen as a renewable carbon-free fuel. For
that reason, burning of H2 in various engines has been attracting
significant amount of attention [1–4], with hydrogen flames mov-
ing to the forefront of the research agenda in the combustion field.
From the fundamental perspective, the most challenging peculiar-
ity of turbulent combustion of lean hydrogen-air mixtures (when
compared to common fossil fuels) consists of abnormally high ra-
tios UT /SL of turbulent burning velocity UT to the laminar flame
speed SL , well documented in such mixtures by various research
groups in a number of experiments performed under substantially
∗
Corresponding author.
E-mail address: wanmp@sustech.edu.cn (M. Wan).
also a recent paper [7]. A similar effect was also found (i) in ex-
periments with highly turbulent syngas-air mixtures [8–10], while
the effect is less pronounced in such mixtures, and (ii) in a Direct
Numerical Simulation (DNS) study of highly turbulent single-step-
chemistry flames characterized by various Lewis numbers Le = α /D
ranging from 0.34 to 1.2 [11,12]. Here, D and α are molecular dif-
fusivity of deficient reactant in a mixture and molecular heat dif-
fusivity of the mixture, respectively.
The abnormally high ratios of UT /SL in lean hydrogen-air mix-
tures are commonly attributed [5,6,13–15] to diffusive-thermal ef-
fects [16], i.e., to local variations in the mixture composition and
temperature due to imbalance of reactant and heat fluxes to/from
inherently laminar reaction zones stretched and wrinkled by tur-
bulent eddies. While this governing physical mechanism is well
recognized, prediction of the high ratios of UT /SL is still one of the
major fundamental challenges to the combustion community. In

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.combustflame.2021.111712
0010-2180/© 2021 The Combustion Institute. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
H. Lee, P. Dai, M. Wan et al.
this regard, the so-called leading point concept pioneered by the
Russian school [13,16] appears to be a promising approach with
the potential to predict a strong increase in UT /SL in lean H2 -air
mixtures due to the diffusive-thermal effects. According to the con-
cept, (i) propagation of a premixed turbulent flame is hypothesized
to be controlled by burning in the leading points that advance fur-
thest into fresh reactants and (ii) the local structure of the lead-
ing points is hypothesized to be strongly perturbed and, hence, is
strongly affected by the diffusive-thermal phenomena. Thus, tur-
bulent burning rate is hypothesized to be controlled by the local
combustion rate in the highly perturbed (critically strained [13] or
critically curved [17,18]) leading points, rather than by the local
combustion rate in weakly perturbed, inherently laminar flames.
Consequently, a large magnitude of the diffusive-thermal effects in
turbulent flames can be predicted.
The use of the leading point concept allowed Karpov et al.
[17] to quantitatively predict high turbulent burning rates mea-
sured in very lean hydrogen flames, but these earlier Reynolds-
Averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) simulations were limited to a
single-step chemistry. Over the past decade, the leading point con-
cept was supported in theoretical studies [19–21] and in recent
RANS simulations [22] that allowed for complex combustion chem-
istry. Moreover, the concept was supported by analyzing experi-
mental [9,10,23] or DNS [24–26] data. However, certain relevant
fundamental issues have not yet been resolved. In particular, a re-
cent DNS study [27] shows that, when the normalized rms turbu-
lent velocity u /SL is increased, (i) the local structure of the leading
flame kernels does tend gradually to the local structure of the crit-
ically strained planar laminar flame, (ii) but, nevertheless, there are
substantial differences at finite values of u /SL (up to 100), explored
in the cited work. It is also worth noting that various critically per-
turbed laminar flames (e.g., the critically strained cylindrical lam-
inar flame, a spherical flame ball [16], etc.) were considered to be
models of the leading points, with local burning rates in different
critically perturbed laminar flames being substantially different, at
least in the case of a single-step chemistry [28].
Thus, while the leading point concept appears to be an attrac-
tive approach to modeling abnormally high ratios of UT /SL , well
documented in lean hydrogen mixtures, it requires further study,
validation, and clarification of some fundamental issues, e.g.:
• Is turbulent burning rate in lean hydrogen mixtures controlled
by characteristics of highly perturbed reaction zones, rather
than by characteristics of the unperturbed or weakly stretched
laminar flames?
• What is the structure of such zones?
• Are such zones linked with the leading points?
• Are there different types of leading highly perturbed reaction
zones?
This work aims at partially filling this knowledge gap by analyz-
ing DNS data to explore (i) the most perturbed local reaction zones
and (ii) the leading reaction zones in lean hydrogen-air premixed
turbulent flames characterized by substantially different Karlovitz
numbers. In Part I of the present study [29], thermochemical struc-
ture of such zones and the local reaction rates are explored. The
major results are summarized below:
1. The peak (over the computational domain) values ω˙ t,max F and
W˙ t,max
T of the Fuel Consumption Rate (FCR) and Heat Release
Rate (HRR), respectively, are significantly larger than the peak
FCR, ω˙ L,max
F , and the peak HRR, W˙ L,max
T , respectively, in the un-
perturbed laminar flame, with the effect magnitude increasing
weakly (significantly) with Ka for the FCR (HRR, respectively).
Here, superscripts F and T refer to fuel and temperature, re-
spectively, subscripts t and L designate turbulent and laminar
flames, respectively.
2
Combustion and Flame 235 (2022) 111712
2. The aforementioned local increase in ω˙ t,max F or W˙ t,max
T in the
extreme points stems from an increase in the local tempera-
ture (solely in the FCR extreme points), equivalence ratio, and
mass fractions of the radicals H, O, OH when compared to these
quantities evaluated at the same local combustion progress
variable in the unperturbed laminar flame.
3. While such extreme FCR and HRR points are sometimes ob-
served sufficiently far from the leading edge of the mean flame
brush, zones (leading points) characterized by large local values
of ω˙ tF /ω˙ L,max
F or W˙ tT /W˙ L,max
T , which are sufficiently close to the
extreme ratios ω˙ F /ω˙ F and W˙ T /W˙ T , respectively, are
t,max L,max t,max L,max
observed in the vicinity of the leading edge almost always.
4. The local thermo-chemical structures (species mass fractions,
equivalence ratio, temperature, reaction rates, etc.) of the ex-
treme and leading points are basically similar. On the contrary,
the local thermo-chemical structures of the FCR and HRR points
are substantially different.
5. In the FCR extreme or leading points, the major reaction path-
ways are basically similar to the major reaction pathways in the
laminar flame zone characterized by the peak FCR. On the con-
trary, in the HRR extreme or leading points, the major reaction
pathways differ significantly from the major reaction pathways
in the laminar flame zone characterized by the peak HRR.
In the present paper, the previous analysis of the thermochem-
ical structure of extreme and leading points and reaction rates in
such points is complemented with investigation of (i) the evolu-
tion and topology of these points and (ii) the local characteristics
of flame perturbations, commonly adopted in the literature.
In the next section, methodology of the present analysis is re-
ported. Results are discussed in Sect. 3, followed by conclusions.
2. Methodology
2.1. DNS attributes
Three-dimensional DNS of freely-propagating statistically planar
turbulent H2 -air premixed flames (the equivalence ratio φ = 0.5,
unburned gas temperature Tu =300 K, and pressure P =1 atm) were
performed using a detailed chemical mechanism (9 species and 22
reactions) by Kéromnès et al. [30] and employing the solver DINO
[31], which deals with the low-Mach-number formulation of the
Navier-Stokes equations.
The computational domain of Lx × Ly × Lz was discretized using
a uniform Cartesian grid of Nx × Ny × Nz cells. Here, Lx = Lz = 2.4
mm, Ly = β Lx , Nx = Nz , Ny = β Nx , and the values of Lx , Nx , and
β are reported in Table 1. Turbulent inflow and outflow bound-
ary conditions were imposed along the streamwise (y) direction
and periodic boundary conditions were specified along the span-
wise and transverse directions. The inlet flow rms velocity was
small, but turbulence was generated using the linear velocity forc-
ing method [32–35] between y = 0.5Lx and y = 8Lx (cases C and
C1) or y = 10Lx (other cases). Characteristics of the forced turbu-
lence are reported in Fig. 2 in Ref. [29].
In each case, inert constant-density turbulence was first sim-
ulated for at least 50τt , followed by embedding a steady un-
strained laminar flame into the flow field. Subsequently, the flame
was allowed to evolve for at least another 28τt . Here, τt = L/u is
eddy turnover time and L is an integral length scale reported in
Table 1. To keep the flame within the forced-flow subdomain, the
mean inlet velocity is manually modified with instantaneous in-
crease/decrease of its value in a stepwise fashion when necessary.
The simulation conditions are summarized in Table 1, where
SL , δLT = (Tb − Tu )/max{|dT /dx|}, and τ f = δLT /SL are the laminar
flame speed, thickness, and time scale, respectively; η = LRet−3/4 is
the Kolmogorov length scale; Ret = u L/νu , Da = τt /τ f , and Ka =
H. Lee, P. Dai, M. Wan et al. Combustion and Flame 235 (2022) 111712

Table 1
Studied cases.

cases SL , m/s δLT , mm u /SL L/δLT Da Ka Ret Le

x/L
x/η Nx β
A 0.58 0.41 2.2 1.1 0.53 3.0 30 0.32 0.082 1.08 64 18
B 0.58 0.41 4.0 1.1 0.29 9.0 56 0.32 0.055 1.13 96 18
C 0.58 0.41 11.8 1.1 0.10 33.0 158 0.32 0.041 1.85 128 16

Table 2
Values of bmax adopted to detect F or T leading points.
A B
ω˙ tF (x, t )/ω˙ L,max
F
2.75 3.15
W˙ tT (x, t )/W˙ L,max
T
2.25 3.15
(u /SL )3/2 (δLT /L )1/2 are the Reynolds, Damköhler, and Karlovitz
numbers, respectively; νu is the kinematic viscosity of unburned
mixture;
x is the grid size; the subscripts u and b designate un-
burnt and burnt mixture, respectively. The equidiffusive flames A1,
A1F, B1, and C1 discussed in Part I [29] will not be addressed in
the present paper.
The used computational meshes ensure at least 11 grid points
across the thermal laminar flame thickness δLT , with the flame res-
olution being significantly better (over 22 grid nodes per δLT ) in
case C characterized by the highest Karlovitz number. In all cases,
the scale η is greater than half of the grid size.
Dependencies of the fuel consumption rate ω˙ H2 ,L (cF ) and the
heat release rate W˙ T,L (cT ) in the unperturbed laminar flame on the
fuel and temperature-based combustion progress variables cF =
(YF,u − YF )/YF,u and cT = (T − Tu )/(Tb − Tu ), respectively, are shown
in Fig. 3 in Part I [29]. Here, YF is the fuel mass fraction. The peak
values of |ω˙ H2 ,L |(cF ) and W˙ T,L (cT ) will be used for normalization
of the counterpart rates extracted from turbulent flames and will
be designated with symbols ω˙ L,max F and W˙ L,max
T , respectively. Hence-
forth, subscript and superscript F or T refer to fuel or temperature,
respectively.
The reader interested in further details of the performed DNS is
referred to Part I [29].
2.2. Numerical diagnostics
The local equivalence ratio in extreme or leading points is eval-
uated as follows
1 2XH2 + 2XH2 O + XH + XOH + XH O2 + 2XH2 O2
φ= , (1)
2 2XO2 + XH2 O + XO + XOH + 2XH O2 + 2XH2 O2
where XS designates mole fraction of species S.
Unsteady spatially averaged quantities are determined as fol-
lows

1
Q (y, t ) = Q (x, t )dxdz,
Lx Lz
with the mean spatial profiles of Q (y ) being obtained by averaging
Q (y, t ) over time.
At each instant, extreme points are characterized by the largest
(over the entire computational domain) magnitude of the instanta-
neous FCR or HRR, i.e. |ω˙ H2 | or W˙ T , respectively. For brevity, these
points will be called F or T extreme points (letters F and T refer to
fuel and temperature, respectively), with the extreme rates being
designated with symbols ω˙ t,max
F or W˙ t,max
T , respectively. Following
arguments provided in Part I [29], leading points are considered
to be the most left points characterized by ω˙ tF (x, t ) > bω˙ L,max
F or
W (x, t ) > bW
˙
t
T ˙ T , with b being either equal to unity or to bmax
L,max
reported in Table 2. The latter value is bounded by a requirement
of ω˙ tF (x, t ) > bω˙ L,max
F or W˙ tT (x, t ) > bW˙ L,max
T at least in a single
point x at each instant t. When one of the above constraints hold
in several points on the same transverse plane, the point charac-
terized by the highest rate was selected. Henceforth, local quanti-
C ties evaluated in leading points are designated using superscript l p,
lp lp
3.25 e.g. cF (t ) and cT (t ) are values of the fuel and temperature-based
5.00 combustion progress variables in leading points. Moreover, lead-
ing points found using the constraints of ω˙ tF (x, t ) > bω˙ L,max
F and
W (x, t ) > bW
˙ T
t
˙ T will be referred as F and T leading points, re-
L,max
spectively.
2.3. Local flame perturbations
When modeling premixed turbulent combustion, diffusive-
thermal effects are commonly addressed by adapting results of
theoretical or numerical studies of perturbed laminar flames, as re-
viewed elsewhere [5,6]. Most often results of theoretical studies of
weakly stretched laminar flames [36–39] are invoked for this pur-
pose, e.g. see Refs. [15,40]. Within the framework of these theories,
flame perturbations are characterized with a stretch rate s˙ , which
(i) is equal to the rate A−1f
dA f /dt of change of the area A f of an
infinitesimal element of the flame surface and (ii) is defined as fol-
lows
s˙ = at + 2Sd κ . (3)
Here,
∂ u j ∂ uk
at = −ni n j + (4)
∂ xi ∂ xk
is a strain rate; ui and ni are components of the velocity vec-
tor u and the unit vector n = −∇ c/|∇ c| normal to the iso-surface
c (x, t ) =const, respectively;
−∇ · Jc + Wc
Sd = (5)
ρ|∇ c|
is a displacement speed, i.e. the speed of that iso-surface with
respect to the local flow; κ = ∇ · n/2 is the local mean curva-
ture of that iso-surface; Jc is the molecular flux of the combustion
progress variable c through the iso-surface; Wc is the mass rate of
product creation, i.e. the source term in the transport equation for
c (x, t ); and ρ is the local flow density.
The aforementioned asymptotic theories [36-39] yield a linear
relation between local burning and stretch rates, whereas Sd de-
pends linearly on both at and κ , with the two coefficients (for at
and κ ) in these linear relations being (i) different from one an-
(2) other in a general case and (ii) different for different iso-surfaces
c (x, t ) =const [41,42]. Since the discussed theories are based on
an assumption that a ratio of the laminar flame thickness to the
smallest length scale of the flow non-uniformities asymptotically
vanishes, the aforementioned linear relations are derived under
conditions of a weak stretch rate, i.e. τ f s˙  1. For the same rea-
sons, a single value of stretch rate, strain rate, or curvature char-
acterizes the entire flame, which is infinitely thin when compared
to the flow length scales, i.e. these quantities are considered to be
constant along the normal to the flame surface within the studied
thin flame.
Due to the constraint of τ f s˙  1, the aforementioned linear re-
lations do not seem to be useful for modeling the local structure of
highly perturbed extreme points [5,6] studied in the present work.
Nevertheless, the fact that the theories show importance of local
flame characteristics such as stretch rate, strain rate, and curvature

3
H. Lee, P. Dai, M. Wan et al.
may be useful for exploring highly perturbed flames in turbulent
flows. Indeed, approaches to modeling turbulent combustion that
invoke results of numerical or theoretical research into critically
perturbed laminar flames deal either (more often) with a highly
strained planar laminar flame [9,10,13,22,23,27,43–47] or with a
highly curved spherical laminar flame [17,18], e.g. a flame ball dis-
covered theoretically by Zel’dovich [16]. In particular, within the
framework of the leading point concept, both highly strained pla-
nar and highly curved spherical laminar flames were considered to
be models of the local structure of leading flame kernels within a
premixed turbulent flame brush, see Refs. [9,10,13,22,23,27,46,47]
and [17,18], respectively.
Based on the above brief overview of the use of results of in-
vestigations of perturbed laminar flames for modeling of premixed
turbulent combustion (the reader interested in a detail review of
the subject is referred to Refs. [5,6,15]), the following issues appear
to be of interest: (i) whether or not there is a relation between
local characteristics of highly strained planar laminar flames and
the extreme or leading points in turbulent flames and (ii) whether
or not local flow-induced perturbations in the extreme or leading
points can be reduced to a single strain rate, curvature, or stretch
rate. These two issues are addressed in the next section.
To explore the former issue, stationary planar laminar flames
subject to various strain rates were simulated by running code
Cantera 2.4 [48], using a fine mesh (up to 1 0 0 0 cells at the highest
strain rates), the same chemical mechanism [30], and varying the
strain rate at up to a critical value at,cr such that further increase
in at > at,cr extinguishes the flame. For the studied lean hydrogen-
air mixture, at,cr = 16 1/ms or at,cr δLT /SL = 11. The choice of the
strained planar flames was motivated by a wide use of this sim-
ple problem for modeling the local structure of leading points in
premixed turbulent flames [9,10,13,22,23,27,46,47].
3. Results and discussion
3.1. Local flame perturbations in extreme and leading points
Major characteristics of local flame perturbations in the ex-
treme and leading points are shown in Figs. 1 and 2, respectively,
where t ∗ = t/τt designates the normalized time. These characteris-
tics oscillate around time-averaged values, with the magnitude of
such oscillations in the F extreme points being large when com-
pared to weak fluctuations in the local FCR, see Fig. 6a in Part I
[29] or Fig. 13, which will be discussed later. This significant dif-
ference implies the lack of a correlation between the extreme FCRs
and the local flame perturbation characteristics such as curvature,
strain or stretch rate. Indeed, statistical analysis of the DNS data
did not reveal such a correlation in the F extreme or leading points.
It is also of interest to note that the signs of κ are opposite in the F
(positive) and T (negative) extreme points in all three cases. Such a
qualitative difference is also observed in the F and T leading points
in cases B and C.
Statistical characteristics (the first two moments) of the dis-
cussed oscillations of various local quantities, normalized using the
laminar flame speed SL and thickness δL = 1/max|∇ cF | = 0.5 mm,
are reported in Table 3, which also includes probabilities P (X > 0 )
of finding positive values of these quantities. The leading points
were detected using bmax reported in Table 2.
Table 3 shows the following trends. First, in the T extreme
points, the local curvature is almost always negative, the local
strain rate is always positive, and the local stretch rate is predom-
inantly positive, with the absolute values of these quantities be-
ing significantly increased with increasing Karlovitz number (from
case A to case C). At first glance, these observations imply a corre-
lation between these perturbation characteristics and a significant
increase in the local HRR with Ka, reported in Fig. 6b in Part I [29].
4
Combustion and Flame 235 (2022) 111712
However, inspection of Table 3 puts such a correlation into ques-
tion. For instance, in case C, the rms of s˙ is significantly larger than
its mean value, whereas magnitude of the oscillations of the lo-
cal HRR is much less than its mean value, see the aforementioned
Fig. 6b. Moreover, there is a substantial probability of finding neg-
ative stretch rates that are commonly associated with a decrease
in burning rate for lean hydrogen-air mixtures, but the normalized
local HRR is significantly larger than unity at all instants. Further-
more, the mean normalized strain rate documented in the T ex-
treme points in case C is close to 100, i.e. much higher than the
critical strain rate that extinguishes the planar stationary laminar
flame. The former rate is very large even in cases A and B. Accord-
ingly, transient effects1 are likely to play a very important role in
the extreme T points.
Second, similar trends are also observed in the T leading points,
but (i) the rms of s˙ is smaller than its mean value, (ii) the curva-
ture is mainly positive in case A, but is negative in cases B and
C, (iii) the strain rate is smaller when compared to the T extreme
points, but (iv) the stretch rate is larger.
Third, in the F extreme points, (i) the local curvature is almost
always positive and its magnitude is increased with increasing Ka,
(ii) the local strain rate is predominantly negative in cases A and
B, but is predominantly positive in case C, (iii) on the contrary,
the local stretch rate is predominantly positive in cases A and B,
but is predominantly negative in case C. Moreover, the time av-
eraged absolute values of the normalized strain and stretch rates
are about 10 in case C, with the corresponding rms values be-
ing much higher. Accordingly, the F extreme points can be subject
to very large instantaneous strain or stretch rates, thus, implying
again that transient effects play an important role.
Fourth, trends observed for the F leading and extreme points
are similar, with the mean values of the discussed quantities being
smaller in the leading points in cases A and B. However, in case C,
(i) the positive mean curvature is larger in the leading points, (ii)
the mean strain rate remains negative, but small in these points,
and (iii) the magnitude of the negative mean stretch rate is signif-
icantly higher in the leading points.
Statistics of leading points detected using bmax and b = 1 show
similar trends, which, however, are less pronounced in the latter
case. For instance, the mean curvature or stretch rate are smaller
in such F points or the mean strain and stretch rates are smaller in
such T points. Moreover, for each considered quantity, signs of its
mean values are the same for b = 1 and bmax , with two exceptions:
(i) normalized mean curvature is positive (1.1 ± 0.6 ) in the T lead-
ing points detected using b = 1 in case B and (ii) normalized mean
strain rate is positive (0.4 ± 5) in the F leading points detected us-
ing b = 1 in case B, but the rms values of at are significantly larger
than its mean values in both (b = 1 and bmax ) F leading points in
case B or C.
Finally, it is worth noting two interesting observations rele-
vant to the (i) F and (ii) T extreme points. First, while the ex-
treme FCR does not correlate with the local curvature, strain or
stretch rate, as already noted, there is a persistent relevant trend
in the F extreme points. Fig. 3 reports the y-profiles of the strain
rate at (y ) extracted at three instants characterized by the lowest
value of |1 + ny (t )| in the F extreme points. Here, ny (t ) is the y-
component of the unit normal vector n and it is very close to −1
in the selected instants. Accordingly, these profiles of at (y ) illus-
trate spatial variations in the strain rate in the direction normal
to the F extreme points. All these profiles show a rapid decrease
in the strain rate at (y ) upstream (y < 0) of the F extreme points
1
As predicted theoretically by Clavin and Joulin [49] and confirmed in subse-
quent experimental and numerical studies reviewed elsewhere [5], due to transient
effects, a laminar flame can survive under the influence of very strong strain or
stretch rate if the rate rapidly changes in time.
H. Lee, P. Dai, M. Wan et al.
Fig. 1. Evolution of normalized curvature (top row), strain rate (second row), stretch rate (third row), and density-weighted displacement speed S˜d ≡ ρ Sd /ρu (bottom row) in
the extreme F (solid lines) and T (dashed lines) points in flames A (left column), B (middle column), and C (right column). The curvature and displacement speed characterize
the local cF (x, t ) and cT (x, t ) fields in F and T points, respectively.
(y = 0) when the distance |y| between the considered point y and
the extreme point is decreased (such a trend is not observed very
close to the F extreme point in flame C at t ∗ = 24.24). In other
words, the product n · ∇ at is positive in the F extreme points at
the selected instants. Statistics of this product sampled from the
F extreme points at all instants yields (δL2 /SL )n · ∇ at = 1.7 ± 1.3,
4.2 ± 3.8, and 28 ± 31 in flames A, B, and C, respectively, with the
probability of n · ∇ at > 0 being equal to 0.91, 0.89, and 0.83, re-
spectively. Such significant spatial variations of the strain rate sug-
gest that results of asymptotic theories that address large-scale
perturbations of laminar flames [36-39] are hardly applicable to
modeling the local structure of the F extreme points, at least, un-
der conditions of the present study.
Second, Fig. 4a shows that the local displacement speed in the
T extreme points correlates well with the local curvature κ of the
iso-surface cT (x, t ) =const. Such correlations were found neither
for strain/stretch rates nor in the F extreme points, see Table 4 and
Fig. 4b. The correlations reported in Fig. 4a are associated with the
last (tangential diffusion or curvature) term in the following well-
known decomposition [50-52] of displacement speed
Wc n · ∇ ( ρ Dc n · ∇ c )
Sd = + −Dc ∇ · n .
ρ|∇ c| ρ|∇ c|   
      T3
T1 T2
Combustion and Flame 235 (2022) 111712
Here, Fick’s law is used as the simplest model of the molecular flux
Jc and Dc is the molecular diffusivity of the combustion progress
variable. In the T extreme points, the iso-surface cT (x, t ) =const is
highly and negatively curved, see Table 3. Accordingly, the curva-
ture term is positive and results in increasing Sd . Fig. 4a implies
that this effect is of more importance when compared to the local
variations in the two other (reaction and normal diffusion) terms
on the right hand side of Eq. (6).
The lack of a similar correlation in the F extreme points, see
Fig. 4b, could be explained as follows. Comparison of the signs
of the mean values of Sdex (t ) · κFex (t ), at,F
ex (t ), and s˙ ex (t ), reported
F
in Table 3, indicates that stretch rate s˙ is mainly controlled (i) by
the curvature contribution Sd κ in the F extreme points (the signs
of Sdex · κFex and s˙ ex
F
are the same, but opposite to the sign of at,F ex )
and (ii) by the strain rate in the T extreme points. Since the lo-
cal stretch rate characterizes the local change of iso-scalar surface
area and, accordingly, |∇ c|, the correlation between the local cur-
vature and |∇ cF | in the F extreme points is expected to be bet-
ter pronounced than the correlation between κ and |∇ cT | in the
T extreme points. This is confirmed by a positive and large corre-
lation coefficient r (T3 , |∇ c| ) extracted from the DNS data in the F
extreme points and reported in the bottom row in Table 5 (note
(6)
that the curvature term T3 includes the sign minus). Consequently,
if the magnitude of the negative (in the F extreme points) term T3
5
H. Lee, P. Dai, M. Wan et al. Combustion and Flame 235 (2022) 111712

Table 3
Mean and rms values of various local characteristics of flame perturbations in the F and T extreme and leading points, normalized using SL and δL , as well as probabilities
of finding positive values of these characteristics.

Case-A Case-B Case-C

quantity point mean rms P(X>0) mean rms P(X>0) mean rms P(X>0)

Extreme points
κ F 1.78 0.29 1.00 2.60 0.55 1.00. 3.22 1.58 0.98
T −0.40 0.31 0.08 −1.40 0.60 0.00 −3.74 1.06 0.00
at F −3.33 1.51 0.01 −3.33 3.22 0.13 8.80 20.0 0.65
T 10.8 1.92 1.00 25.5 6.03 1.00 99.0 20.9 1.00
S˜d F 1.47 0.14 1.00 1.21 0.25 1.00 −0.48 0.73 0.23
T 1.89 0.18 1.00 2.70 0.36 1.00 5.52 0.76 1.00
s˙ F 18.3 2.98 1.00 22.8 6.59 0.99 −10.6 45.3 0.49
T 6.88 2.88 0.97 7.98 8.81 0.83 21.8 35.3 0.77
Leading Points (b = bmax )
κ F 1.42 0.30 0.997 2.06 0.56 1.00 3.93 1.57 1.00
T 0.39 0.31 0.900 −0.62 0.46 0.02 −2.86 1.05 0.03
at F −2.35 1.66 0.076 −2.34 3.66 0.26 −0.93 11.2 0.43
T 5.35 2.41 0.997 19.1 4.90 1.00 77.7 26.1 1.00
S˜d F 1.39 0.17 0.997 1.11 0.25 1.00 −0.64 1.07 0.28
T 1.41 0.17 0.997 1.54 0.24 1.00 4.39 0.71 1.00
s˙ F 13.1 2.32 0.997 16.8 4.14 1.00 −24.3 58.9 0.36
T 8.12 1.92 0.991 12.5 7.04 0.95 36.3 29.3 0.87
Leading Points (b = 1.0)
κ F 1.15 0.29 0.997 1.52 0.49 1.00 3.10 1.31 1.00
T 1.05 0.40 0.994 1.07 0.65 0.97 −0.33 1.32 0.43
at F −0.91 2.23 0.366 0.46 5.23 0.48 −1.35 15.8 0.43
T 1.44 2.44 0.739 6.22 6.64 0.80 34.13 25.0 0.95
S˜d F 1.14 0.22 0.997 0.85 0.39 0.96 −1.38 1.64 0.18
T 1.41 0.17 0.997 0.92 0.41 0.99 1.21 0.77 0.98
s˙ F 6.83 2.18 0.983 7.24 6.06 0.90 −43.37 76.2 0.28
T 8.12 1.92 0.991 9.55 5.62 0.95 29.61 24.6 0.93

Table 4
Pearson’s correlation coefficients between the displacement speed and curvature, strain rate, or stretch rate in the F and T extreme points.

Case-A Case-B Case-C

Correlation, r F T F T F T

r ( sd , κ ) −0.2671 −0.8488 −0.3772 −0.9290 −0.576 −0.8498

r (sd , at ) 0.2542 0.4349 0.2920 0.4036 0.3021 0.1889
r (sd , s˙ ) 0.5246 −0.7055 0.7041 −0.7770 0.8029 −0.6951

Table 5 strain rate, which mainly controls the local stretch rate, as noted
Pearson’s correlation coefficients between various terms in Eq. (6).
earlier.
Case-A Case-B Case-C

Correlation, r F T F T F T 3.2. Topology and evolution of leading points

r (T3 , T1 ) −0.86 −0.40 −0.93 0.27 −0.91 0.74
r (T3 , T2 ) −0.65 0.35 −0.62 0.24 −0.51 0.03 The fact that the curvature of the T leading points is nega-
r (T3 , |∇ c| ) 0.79 0.48 0.92 0.04 0.89 −0.51 tive in flames B and, especially, C appears to be surprising, be-
cause curvature of a leading point should always be positive for
purely topological reasoning. It is worth emphasizing, however,
is increased, the gradient |∇ cF | is decreased and, hence, the mag- that the T leading points were detected based on the local value
nitude of the positive term T1 is increased, thus, counterbalancing of HRR, whereas the local curvature was evaluated for the iso-
the increase in the negative T3 . The first row in Table 5 shows that surface cT (x, t ) =const. If the local curvature is defined as follows:
such a negative correlation between the terms T1 and T3 is well κHRR = ∇ · nHRR , where the unit vector nHRR = −∇ W˙ tT /|∇ W˙ tT | is
pronounced in the F extreme points. This negative correlation can normal to the iso-surface W˙ tT (x, t ) =const, then, the local curva-
also be easily seen in Fig. 5. Since the nominator in the reaction ture is positive, see Fig. 6, as this should be for a leading point.
term T1 varies weakly in the F extreme points, as shown in Fig. 6a Moreover, the curvature of the latter isosurface is very large and is
in Part I [29], the negative r (T1 , T3 ) results solely from the positive increased by Ka.
r (T3 , |∇ c| ), see the bottom row in Table 5. Due to the discussed These results imply that the iso-surfaces cT (x, t ) =const and
mutual cancelation of variations of the terms T1 and T3 , see Fig. 5, W˙ tT (x, t ) =const are substantially different in the vicinity of the
and because the correlation between the diffusion terms T2 and T3 T leading points. Indeed, red dashed lines in Fig. 7 show that a
is less pronounced due to variations of the nominator in the for- scalar product of the unit normal vectors nT = −∇ cT /|∇ cT | and
mer term, the DNS data are highly scattered in Fig. 4b. A similar nHRR differs significantly from unity, with the effect being more
mutual cancelation of variations of the terms T1 and T3 does not pronounced in the highly turbulent flame C. On the contrary,
occur in the negatively curved T extreme points, because the two the scalar products nF · nT , nF · nF CR , and nF · nφ (not shown to
terms have the same sign there. Consequently, in these extreme make Fig. 7 readable) are always close to unity in the T lead-
points, |∇ cT | (i) correlates poorly with the curvature term T3 , see ing points, indicating similarities of the iso-surfaces cF (x, t ) =const
the last row in Table 5, and (ii) is significantly affected by the local and cT (x, t ) =const, ω˙ tF (x, t ) =const, or φ (x, t ) =const, respec-

6
H. Lee, P. Dai, M. Wan et al.
Fig. 2. Evolution of normalized curvature (top row), strain rate (second row), stretch rate (third row), and density-weighted displacement speed (bottom row) in the extreme
F (solid lines) and T (dashed lines) points in flames A (left column), B (middle column), and C (right column). The curvature and displacement speed characterize the local
and fields in F and T points, respectively.
tively. Here, nF = −∇ cF /|∇ cF |, nF CR = −∇ ω˙ tF /|∇ ω˙ tF |, and nφ =
−∇ φ /|∇ φ|.
Results reported in Figs. 6 and 7 and similar results obtained
in the T extreme points indicate that the local flame structure is
highly perturbed in the considered points. As illustrated in Fig. 8,
the local structures of the T leading points are very different at
different instants. Sometimes, the local structure resembles a flame
cusp, see the second column, or implosion of a pocket of unburned
mixture enveloped by a flame, see the right column. Such images
imply that the T leading points could disappear due to local flame
collisions. However, analysis of a number of subsequent images
shows that a typical scenario of the T leading point change consists
in moving another point characterized by W˙ tT (x, t )/W˙ L,max T > bmax
further to the left when compared to the preceding leading point,
e.g. see images in the left and middle rows in Fig. 9. While there
is an unburned mixture finger in the vicinity of the earlier lead-
ing point (t ∗ = 28.41, left column), the finger does not disappear
quickly and still survives at t ∗ = 28.55, see the right column.
Note that the right images in Fig. 9 have been obtained by
tracking the motion of the earlier leading point (t ∗ = 28.41) after
the change of the T leading points at t ∗ = 28.43, see middle col-
umn. For this purpose, at each instant, the leading or preceding
leading point is placed in the center of a cube whose side length
is equal to 15
x = 0.57δL and the most left point characterized by
7
Combustion and Flame 235 (2022) 111712
W˙ tT (x, t )/W˙ L,max
T > bmax is found in this cube at the next instant.
Readers interested in further details of the tracking algorithm em-
ployed in this work are referred to Supplemental Materials. This
tracking algorithm offers an opportunity to observe disappearance
of preceding leading points due to implosion of unburned gas, see
the bottom row in Fig. 10, but such implosions typically occur after
the change of the leading points. Implosions of unburned mixture
occur not only in the vicinity of preceding T leading points, but
also in other flame zones, see the top right corner in images in the
top row in Fig. 10.
Black and white crosses in Fig. 8 indicate that the F and T lead-
ing points are not neighboring points (note that the z-coordinates
of these two points are also different in each image). By applying
various diagnostics techniques to processing the DNS data, we did
not reveal a link between coordinates of the F and T leading points.
For instance, the distance between the leading F and T points is al-
most always larger than the distance between points characterized
lp lp
by cF and cT in the unperturbed laminar flame. Moreover, while
a T leading point is typically closer to the inlet boundary when
lp lp
compared to a F leading point, i.e., yT (t ) < yF (t ), the probability
lp lp
of finding yT (t ) > yF (t ) does not vanish.
One might assume that processes peculiar to the T leading
points occur in other zones also and, in particular, in the vicin-
H. Lee, P. Dai, M. Wan et al. Combustion and Flame 235 (2022) 111712

Fig. 3. Profiles of normalized strain rate along the y-axis, which is locally normal to the F extreme points (y = 0) at the selected instants specified in legends. Results
obtained from flames A, B, and C are plotted in the left, middle, and right columns, respectively.

Fig. 4. Correlation between the local curvature of the iso-surface (a) cT (x, t ) =const or (b) cF (x, t ) =const and the local displacement speed in the extreme (a) T and (b)
F points in flames A (circles and red solid lines), B (squares and blue dashed lines), and C (pentagons and green dotted lines). Straight lines show least square fits, with
Pearson’s correlation coefficients being reported in legends . (For interpretation of the references to colour in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the web version of
this article.)

Fig. 5. Evolution of terms T1 (red solid lines) and T3 (black dashed lines) in Eq. (6) in the F extreme points in flames A (left column), B (middle column), and C (right
column) . (For interpretation of the references to colour in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the web version of this article.)

ity of the F leading points, thus, affecting burning in the latter
points. As discussed in Part I [29], there are the following three
peculiar features of the T leading points: (i) the local HRR (FCR) is
higher (lower, respectively) than W˙ L,max
T (ω˙ L,max
F , respectively), (ii)
signs of the rates of production of the radicals H and O are op-
posite (negative and positive, respectively, see Fig. 19b in Part I
[29]), and (iii) curvature of the temperature iso-surface is nega-
tive, see dashed lines in Figs. 2b and 2c. Accordingly, zones where
the features (i)-(iii) held were sought in the vicinity and upstream
of the F leading points, i.e., in a rectangular whose right side con-
tained the F leading point in the center and whose axial length
was equal to n
x. However, the probability of finding such zones
was very low even for n = 4. Thus, statistical evidence that burn-
ing structures similar to the T leading or extreme points exist very
close to the F leading points and, therefore, could affect them, has
not yet been found. Nevertheless, images reported in Fig. 11 show
that such burning structures exist sufficiently close to the F leading
points sometimes. Accordingly, an issue of eventual influence of re-
actions and heat release in zones similar to the T leading points on
combustion in the F leading points requires further target-directed
study.
Finally, it is worth noting that changes of the T leading points
occur more often when compared to the F leading points. For in-
stance, during the evolution of flame C, the changes of the latter
(former) points occurred 16 (37, respectively) times during an in-
terval of about 35τt . In flame B, such changes occurred 22 (61, re-
spectively) times during an interval of about 65τt . In flame A char-
acterized by the lowest Karlovitz number, there were 7 (8, respec-
tively) changes during an interval of about 20τt .
3.3. Thermo-chemical structure of strained laminar flames and
extreme points
Figure 12 shows that the computed peak local FCR and HRR
are monotonously increased in strained laminar flames, with the
maximum values of the FCR and HRR being reached at the criti-
cal strain rate at = at,cr ≈ 16 1/ms close to combustion extinction.
While the maximum HRR in the strained laminar flames is signif-
icantly (by a factor of about two) less than the HRRs in the ex-
treme T points in the highly turbulent flame C, see Fig. 13d, the
maximum FCR reached in the critically strained laminar flame is
comparable with the FCRs in the extreme F points in all three tur-
bulent flames, see Fig. 13c. It is also of interest to note that ratios

8
H. Lee, P. Dai, M. Wan et al.
Fig. 6. Evolution of normalized (using δL ) curvature of iso-surface of W˙ tT (x, t ) =const in (a) extreme and (b) leading T points. The leading points were detected using bmax
reported in Table 3.
Fig. 7. Evolution of scalar products of various unit normal vectors specified in legends in T leading points in flames (a) A and (b) C. The leading points were detected using
bmax reported in Table 3.
of ω˙ t,max
F /ω˙ L,str
F [cF = cFex (t )] plotted in Fig. 13a are close to ratios
of ω˙ t,max
F /max{ω˙ L,str
F (cF )}
reported in Fig. 13c. Thus, the peak FCR
is reached at almost the same cF in the critically strained laminar
flame and in the extreme F points in turbulent flames. It is worth
remembering that cFex (t ) weakly fluctuates in the vicinity of 0.7 in
the turbulent flames, see Fig. 14a in Part I [29].
Values of other single-point (i.e., quantities that do not involve
spatial derivatives) thermo-chemical characteristics of the F ex-
treme points in the studied turbulent flames are also close to the
values of the counterpart characteristics conditioned to the peak
FCR in the critically strained laminar flame, e.g. see (i) evolution
of the local temperature or equivalence ratio, shown in Figs. 14a-
14c or 14d-14f, respectively, (ii) mean mass fractions of various
species, reported in Fig. 15, or (iii) rates of production/consumption
of various species, plotted in Fig. 16a. While differences between
the former and latter quantities are increased with the Karlovitz
number for certain characteristics, e.g., see (i) Figs. 14d and 14f,
(ii) mass fractions of various species with the exception of H and
OH in Fig. 15, or (iii) rates of production/consumption of H and O
in Fig. 16a, the trend is weakly pronounced when compared to the
T extreme points discussed below.
In flames A and B, single-point thermo-chemical charac-
teristics of the T extreme points are also close to the val-
ues of these characteristics conditioned to the peak HRR in
the critically strained laminar flame, e.g., see curves plotted
in black and red lines in Figs. 13b and 13d or mass frac-
tions and rates of production/consumption of various species
in Figs. 15 and 16b, respectively. However, in flame C, the ra-
tio W˙ t,max
T /max{W˙ L,str
T (c )} fluctuates around two, see blue curve
T A and C, respectively.
in Fig. 13d. Moreover, comparison of blue curves in Figs. 13b
and 13d shows that W˙ t,max T T [c = cex (t )] differs substantially
/W˙ L,str T T stants characterized by the minimum (and very small) value of
9
Combustion and Flame 235 (2022) 111712
from W˙ t,max
T /max{W˙ L,str
T (c )}, thus, implying that, in the critically
T
strained flames, the maximum HRR is reached at cT that differs
substantially from cTex (t ) in flame C. Furthermore, mean normalized
mass fractions of H, O, OH, HO2 , and H2 O2 differ significantly from
unity in the right diagram in Fig. 15, as well as mean normalized
rates of production/consumption of H, OH, and HO2 in the right
diagram in Fig. 16b. Finally, the rates of production/consumption
of H2 O2 have opposite signs in the T extreme points in flame C
and in the point characterized by the peak HRR in the critically
strained laminar flame, see right gray rectangular in Fig. 16b. Ac-
cordingly, single-point thermo-chemical characteristics of the crit-
ically strained laminar flame are less suitable for describing the T
extreme points when compared to the F extreme points.
Similarities between single-point thermo-chemical characteris-
tics of the F extreme points and critically strained laminar flames,
observed in Figs. 13-16, appear to be surprising, because common
characteristics of local flame perturbations (curvature, strain and
stretch rates), evaluated in the F extreme points and plotted in
solid lines in Fig. 1, are very different from the counterpart char-
acteristics of a steady strained laminar premixed flame. Moreover,
the density-weighted displacement speed S˜d conditioned to the
peak FCR in the critically strained laminar flame is about 0.8SL ,
whereas the mean S˜d (t )/SL evaluated in the F extreme points are
equal to 1.39 and −1.11 in flames A and C, see Table 3. Further-
more, the mean value of the gradient |∇ cF | (or |∇ cT |) evaluated in
the F (or T) extreme points and normalized using |∇ cF | (or |∇ cT |)
conditioned to the peak FCR (or HRR) in the critically strained lam-
inar flame are equal to 0.93 and 0.73 (or 0.89 and 1.52) in flames
Instantaneous profiles of |∇ cF |(y ) and |∇ cT |(y ) extracted at in-
H. Lee, P. Dai, M. Wan et al. Combustion and Flame 235 (2022) 111712

Fig. 8. 2D images of cT (x, t )-fields (top row) and W˙ tT (x, t )/W˙ L,max
T
-fields (bottom row) obtained from flame C at t ∗ = 17.5, (first column), 21.2 (second column), 36.6 (third
column), and 50.1 (fourth column). White crosses show the T leading points. Black crosses indicate x and y coordinates of the F leading points, which belong to other (when
compared to the T leading points) planes z =const. (For interpretation of the references to colour in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the web version of this
article.)

Fig. 9. 2D images of W˙ tT (x, t )/W˙ L,max

T
-fields (top row) and cT (x, t )-fields (bottom row) at t ∗ = 28.41 (left column), 28.43 (middle column), and 28.55 (right column). Black
crosses in top left and middle images show the T leading points, whose x-coordinates are equal to 1.52 and 0.69 mm, respectively. Images in the left and right columns have
been obtained for the same x = 1.52 mm. Flame C.

|1 + nex
y (t )| are plotted in lines in Fig. 17. In flame C, two of four
profiles of |∇ cF |(y ) along the normal to the F extreme point, see
Fig. 17c, are sufficiently close to the profile of |∇ cF |(y ) in the crit-
ically strained laminar flame (pentagons). In flames A and B, see
Figs. 17a and 17b, respectively, variations of |∇ cF | along the normal
to the F extreme point differ significantly from |∇ cF |(y ) in the crit-
ically strained or unperturbed (squares) laminar flames, with the
latter laminar-flame profiles being closer to the turbulent ones. On
the contrary, profiles of |∇ cT |(y ) along the normal to the T ex-
treme point in flames A and B are sufficiently close to the profile
of |∇ cT |(y ) in the critically strained laminar flame, see Figs. 17d
and 17e, but such profiles are significantly different in flame C, see
Fig. 17f.
Some of these trends are also observed for gradients of mass
fractions of major radicals, e.g. see Fig. 18 where such results are
reported for H. In flame C, one instantaneous profile of ∇ YH (y )
along the normal to the F extreme point, see Fig. 18c, is close
to the profile of ∇ YH (y ) in the critically strained laminar flame
(pentagons). In flames A and B, see Figs. 18a and 18b, respectively,
variations of ∇ YH along the normal to the F extreme point differ
significantly from ∇ YH (y ) in the critically strained or unperturbed
(squares) laminar flames. In the vicinity of the T extreme points,
see Figs. 18d-18f, the former (strained) laminar-flame profiles of
∇ YH (y ) are closer to the turbulent ones in all three flames. Never-
theless, only in case B, profiles of ∇ YH (y ) along the normal to the
T extreme point are close to the profile of ∇ YH (y ) in the critically
strained laminar flame, see Fig. 17e. In flames A and C, the tur-
bulent and laminar profiles of ∇ YH (y ) are different, with the peak
value of ∇ YH (y ) being smaller (larger) in flame A (C, respectively)
when compared to the critically strained laminar flame.
4. Discussion: implications for modeling and a new challenge
Similar to results discussed in Part I [29], results reported in
the present paper neither reject nor prove the leading point con-
cept. On the one hand, Figs. 1- 4 and Table 3 indicate that quan-

10
H. Lee, P. Dai, M. Wan et al. Combustion and Flame 235 (2022) 111712

Fig. 10. 2D images of cF (x, t )-fields (left column), cT (x, t )-fields (middle column), and W˙ tT (x, t )/W˙ L,max
T
-fields (right column) at t ∗ = 28.83 (top row) and 30.03 (bottom row).
Flame C.

Fig. 11. 2D images of cF (x, t )-fields (first column), cT (x, t )-fields (second column), W˙ tT (x, t )/W˙ L,max
T
-fields (third column), and ω˙ tF (x, t )/ω˙ L,max
F
-fields (fourth column) obtained
from flame C at t ∗ = 27.83, (top row) and 28.03 (bottom row). Crosses show the F leading points.

tities used commonly for characterizing perturbations (curvature,
strain or stretch rate) of laminar premixed flames vary significantly
in the F or T extreme points with time, with their mean values
being substantially affected by Ka. Accordingly, the local structure
of extreme or leading F or T points is not reduced to the struc-
ture of a single simply perturbed (strained or/and curved) laminar
flame. This is not surprising, in particular, because transient effects
appear to play a pivotal role in the extreme or leading points, as
implied by large (“supercritical”) instantaneous values of the lo-
cal strain or stretch rate, cf. Figs. 1 and 2 with Fig. 12. At first
glance, these results put utility of the leading point concept into
question.

11
H. Lee, P. Dai, M. Wan et al. Combustion and Flame 235 (2022) 111712

to the peak FCR in the stationary, planar, critically strained laminar

flame. However, spatial gradients of species mass fractions in the
vicinity of the F extreme points differ significantly from the coun-
terpart gradients in the aforementioned laminar flame, see Figs. 17
and 18.
The fact that the computed extreme FCRs ω˙ t,max F are always
(at different Ka and at different instants) close to the peak FCR
ω˙ str,max
F in the stationary, planar, critically strained laminar flame,
see Fig. 13c, appears to be beneficial for modeling. More specif-
ically, it suggests the use of the latter rate ω˙ str,max
F as an input
parameter for unsteady CFD (not only RANS, but also Large Eddy
Simulation, LES) research into premixed turbulent combustion. This
idea is consonant with the basic idea of the leading point concept,
i.e. substitution of the laminar flame speed SL with a local con-
sumption velocity ucr c,L
evaluated in a critically perturbed laminar
flame [5,6,13]. Accordingly, it would be of great interest to eval-
uate the local consumption velocity uF,ex c,t in the F extreme points
Fig. 12. Peak local fuel consumption (solid line) and heat release (dashed line) rates and compare the obtained values with ucr evaluated in the sta-
computed for stationary, planar, strained laminar premixed flames and normalized c,L
using the peak rates in the unperturbed laminar flame vs. normalized strain rate.
tionary, planar, critically strained laminar flame. Due to differences
in spatial gradients shown in Figs. 17 and 18, differences between
uF,ex cr
c,t /uc,L and unity are likely to be larger than small differences
On the other hand, Figs. 13 and 14 show that major single-point (Fig. 13c) between ω˙ t,max
F /ω˙ str,max
F and unity. Nevertheless, if the
thermo-chemical characteristics (FCR, equivalence ratio and tem- former differences are sufficiently small, the substitution of SL with
perature) of the F extreme (or leading, see Fig. S1 in Supplemen- ucr
c,L
in equations of a turbulent combustion model could be justi-
tal Materials) points (i) oscillate weakly, (ii) are almost the same fied, at least to the leading order. These issues will be addressed in
for three different Karlovitz numbers, and (iii) are close to the future papers.
counterpart quantities conditioned to the peak FCR in the station- Moreover, the highlighted fact (ω˙ t,max
F /ω˙ str,max
F ≈ 1 in Fig. 13c)
ary, planar, critically strained laminar flame. Moreover, Figs. 15 and implies that, for each H2 /O2 /N2 /I mixture (here, I is an inert dilu-
16 show that the mean mass fractions of various species and the ent such as He, Ar, etc.), there is an extreme perturbation of the
mean rates of their creation/consumption, evaluated in the F ex- local FCR, which can be reached in different ways, e.g., in rapidly
treme (or leading, see Figs. S2 and S3 in Supplemental Materials) evolving extreme points in various turbulent flames or in the sta-
points are also almost the same for three different Karlovitz num- tionary, planar, critically strained laminar flame. This hypothesis
bers and are also close to the counterpart quantities conditioned could be supported in Figs. 20b, 20d, and 20f in Part I [29], which

Fig. 13. Evolution of ratios of (a) ω˙ t,max

F
/ω˙ L,str
F
[cF = cFex (t )], (b) W˙ t,max
T
/W˙ L,str
T
[cT = cTex (t )], (c) ω˙ t,max
F
/max{ω˙ L,str
F
(cF )}, and (d) W˙ t,max
T
/max{W˙ L,str
T
(cT )} evaluated in the F (left
column) or T (right column) extreme points in turbulent flames A (black solid lines), B (red dashed lines), and C (blue dotted lines). The rates ω˙ L,str F
(cF ) and W˙ L,str
T
(cT ) are
calculated at the critical strain rate. (For interpretation of the references to colour in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the web version of this article.)

12
H. Lee, P. Dai, M. Wan et al. Combustion and Flame 235 (2022) 111712

Fig. 14. Evolution of normalized temperature (top row) and equivalence ratio (bottom row) in extreme F (black solid lines) or T (red dashed lines) points in flames A (left
column), B (middle column), and C (right column). The normalization is done using the value of T or φ in point characterized by the peak FCR or HRR in the critically
strained laminar flame. (For interpretation of the references to colour in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the web version of this article.)

Fig. 15. Time-averaged mass fractions of various species in the F or T extreme points, normalized using mass fractions of the same species in points characterized by the
peak FCR or HRR, respectively, in the critically strained laminar flame.

Fig. 16. Time-averaged rates of production/consumption of various species in (a) F or (b) T extreme points, normalized using the rates evaluated in points characterized by
the peak FCR or HRR, respectively, in the critically strained laminar flame.

show that the extreme FCR is mainly controlled by the two reac-
tions H2 +OHH + H2 O and H2 +OH+OH. The rates of these re-
actions are likely to peak at certain optimal combinations of mass
fractions of H2 , OH, and O, with these optimal combinations be-
ing reached at certain optimal local equivalence ratio. Note that
since the activation temperatures for these reactions are moderate
(about 3 500 and 3 150 K, respectively, when compared to 7 650 K
for the branching chain reaction O2 +HOH+O and 6 700 K for the
propagation chain reaction H2 O+OOH+OH [30]), sensitivity of
the discussed reaction rates to the local temperature variations is
also expected to be moderate. These hypotheses should be further
examined, e.g. in complex-chemistry simulations of various highly
perturbed laminar flames, such as stationary cylindrical critically
strained flames, highly curved expanding cylindrical and spherical
flames, or more complicated flame configurations, e.g., see papers
by Mikolaitis [53,54], Uemichi and Nishioka [55], or Zhou et al.
[56].
As far as the T extreme or leading points are concerned, they
characteristics (i) fluctuate with higher magnitudes when com-
pared to the F points, (ii) depend on the Karlovitz number, e.g.
see the right column in Fig. 13 or the top row in Fig. 14, and (iii)
can significantly differ from characteristics of the stationary, planar,
critically strained laminar flame, e.g. see a ratio of HRRs plotted in
blue dotted line in Fig. 13d. Accordingly, contrary to the extreme
FCR, the present analysis does not reveal a characteristic of the
T extreme or leading points, which could be useful for advancing

13
H. Lee, P. Dai, M. Wan et al. Combustion and Flame 235 (2022) 111712

Fig. 17. Variations of |∇ cF | (top row) or |∇ cT | (bottom row) along the normal to the unperturbed (squares) or critically strained (pentagons) laminar premixed flame or
along the normal to the F (top row) or T (bottom row) extreme point (lines). All profiles are shifted such that the FCR (top row) or HRR (bottom row) peaks at y = 0. Profiles
extracted from turbulent flames A (left column), B (middle column), and C (right column) are instantaneous, with relevant instants t ∗ being specified in legends.

Fig. 18. Variations of ∇ YH along the normal to the unperturbed (squares) or critically strained (pentagons) laminar premixed flame or along the normal to the F (top row)
or T (bottom row) extreme point (lines). All profiles are shifted such that the FCR (top row) or HRR (bottom row) peaks at y = 0. Profiles extracted from turbulent flames A
(left column), B (middle column), and C (right column) are instantaneous, with relevant instants t ∗ being specified in legends.

the leading point concept. Therefore, the concept should (if any)
be adapted to model the FCR-based turbulent burning velocity UtF ,
but not the HRR-based UtT . Nevertheless, since UtF ≈ UtT , e.g., in the
present DNSs, it is not necessary to apply the concept to both tur-
bulent burning velocities. It is sufficient to model UtF by adapting
the leading point concept, whereas an approach to directly mod-
eling the influence of diffusive-thermal effects on UtT has not yet
been put forward, to the best of the present authors knowledge.
This situation is somehow similar to modeling the speed of a fully
developed turbulent flame whose mean thickness is statistically
stationary. This speed could be evaluated either by exploring the
speed of the flame leading edge or by integrating the mean FCR
or HRR along the normal to the mean flame brush, with the re-
sult should be the same. Accordingly, to solve the problem, a more
elaborated method may be selected among alternative approaches.
5. Conclusions
Data obtained in recent DNS [29] of statistically one-
dimensional and planar, lean complex-chemistry hydrogen-air
flames characterized by three different Karlovitz numbers Ka rang-
ing from 3 to 33 were further analyzed in order to explore local
characteristics and structure of (i) extreme points characterized by
the peak (over the computational domain) Fuel Consumption Rate
(FCR) or Heat Release Rate (HRR) and (ii) leading points that were
also characterized by a high FCR or HRR, but advanced furthest
into unburned reactants. The following numerical results are worth
emphasizing.
First, no correlation between the local FCR or HRR in the ex-
treme or leading points and the conventional local characteristics
of flame perturbations (curvature, strain or stretch rate) is found.

14
H. Lee, P. Dai, M. Wan et al.
Almost the same FCR (or almost the same HRR) can be observed at
significantly different (not only in magnitudes, but even in signs)
local values of flame curvature, strain rate, or stretch rate. More-
over, the local strain rate in an extreme or leading point can be
much higher than the extinction strain rate for the stationary, pla-
nar, strained laminar flame, thus, indicating pivotal importance of
transient effects. Furthermore, other two-point local characteris-
tics of the extreme points, e.g., the local gradients of combustion
progress variables or species (e.g., the radical H) mass fractions, are
different in different flames. Therefore, conventional simple flame
configurations do not seem to be appropriate for accurately model-
ing all characteristics of the extreme or leading points. This is not
surprising bearing in mind highly unsteady and multidimensional
nature of the extreme or leading points.
Second, a linear correlation between the local displacement
speed and the curvature of the temperature iso-surface is well pro-
nounced in the HRR-based extreme points. In the FCR-based ex-
treme points, the correlation is significantly weaker, because fluc-
tuations of the reaction and tangential-diffusion components of the
displacement speed mitigate one another due to well pronounced
correlation between |∇ cF | and the tangential-diffusion term.
Third, in the vicinity of the HRR-based leading points, the tem-
perature and HRR iso-surfaces differ significantly. In particular,
a scalar product of unit vectors normal to these iso-surfaces in
a HRR-based leading point is often significantly less than unity,
whereas a scalar product of unit vectors normal to the cF . and
FCR iso-surfaces is always close to unity in the FCR-based lead-
ing points. Moreover, curvatures of the temperature and HRR iso-
surfaces have opposite signs in the HRR-based leading points. Thus,
the local structure of the HRR-based extreme or leading points is
highly complicated and differ significantly from the local structure
of the FCR-based extreme or leading points.
Fourth, single-point local characteristics (temperature, species
mass fractions, rates of their production) of the FCR extreme points
are comparable in all three studied turbulent flames and in the sta-
tionary, planar, critically strained laminar flame. In particular, the
FCR exhibits weak fluctuations around mean values, which are ap-
proximately equal in the three flames characterized by significantly
different Karlovitz numbers. Moreover, the extreme FCR is always
(in the three flames and at different instants) close to the peak
FCR in the critically strained laminar flame. These findings imply
that (i) the maximum FCR evaluated in the stationary, planar, crit-
ically strained laminar flame could be used to characterize, in a
first approximation, the local FCR in the extreme or leading points
in a turbulent flame, in line with the leading point concept, and
(ii) almost the same extreme FCR can be reached in substantially
different local burning structures. These hypotheses resulting from
the present work definitely require further assessment and devel-
opment.
Declaration of Competing Interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing finan-
cial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to
influence the work reported in this paper.
Acknowledgement
This work has been supported in part by NSFC (Grant Nos.
91752201 and 51976088), the Shenzhen Science and Technol-
ogy Program (Grant No. KQTD20180411143441009), Department
of Science and Technology of Guangdong Province (Grant Nos.
2019B21203001 and 2020B1212030 0 01), and by project no. LCH-
2019011 under the Joint Program of Shenzhen Clean Energy Re-
search Institute and SUSTech through contract CERI-KY-2019–003.
15
Combustion and Flame 235 (2022) 111712
AL acknowledges support provided by Combustion Engine Research
Center (CERC).
Supplementary materials
Supplementary material associated with this article can be
found, in the online version, at doi:10.1016/j.combustflame.2021.
111712.
References
[1] G.A. Karim, Hydrogen as a spark ignition engine fuel, Int. J. Hydrogen Energy
28 (2003) 569–577.
[2] S. Verhelst, T. Wallner, Hydrogen-fueled internal combustion engines, Prog. En-
ergy Combust. Sci. 35 (2009) 490–527.
[3] H.L. Yip, A. Srna, A.C.Y. Yuen, S. Kook, R.A. Taylor, G.H. Yeoh, P.R. Medwell,
Q.N. Chan, A review of hydrogen direct injection for internal combustion en-
gines: towards carbon-free combustion, Appl. Sci. 9 (2019) 4842.
[4] G.D.Y. Choubey, W. Huang, L. Yan, H. Babazadeh, K.M. Pandey, Hydrogen
fuel in scramjet engines - a brief review, Int. J. Hydrogen Energy 45 (2020)
16799–16815.
[5] A.N. Lipatnikov, J. Chomiak, Molecular transport effects on turbulent flame
propagation and structure, Prog. Energy Combust. Sci. 31 (2005) 1–73.
[6] A.N. Lipatnikov, Fundamentals of Premixed Turbulent Combustion, CRC Press,
Boca Raton, Florida, 2012.
[7] S. Yang, A. Saha, W. Liang, F. Wu, C.K. Law, Extreme role of preferential diffu-
sion in turbulent flame propagation, Combust. Flame 188 (2018) 498–504.
[8] S. Daniele, P. Jansohn, J. Mantzaras, K. Boulouchos, Turbulent flame speed
for syngas at gas turbine relevant conditions, Proc. Combust. Inst. 33 (2011)
2937–2944.
[9] P. Venkateswaran, A. Marshall, D.H. Shin, D. Noble, J. Seitzman, T. Lieuwen,
Measurements and analysis of turbulent consumption speeds of H2 /CO mix-
tures, Combust. Flame 158 (2011) 1602–1614.
[10] P. Venkateswaran, A. Marshall, J. Seitzman, T. Lieuwen, Pressure and fuel ef-
fects on turbulent consumption speeds of H2 /CO blends, Proc. Combust. Inst.
34 (2013) 1527–1535.
[11] N. Chakraborty, A.N. Lipatnikov, Effects of Lewis number on conditional fluid
velocity statistics in low Damköhler number turbulent premixed combustion:
a direct numerical simulation analysis, Phys Fluids 25 (2013) 045101.
[12] N. Chakraborty, I. Konstantinou, A.N. Lipatnikov, Effects of Lewis number on
vorticity and enstrophy transport in turbulent premixed flames, Phys Fluids
28 (2016) 015109.
[13] V.R. Kuznetsov, V.A. Sabelnikov, Turbulence and Combustion, Hemisphere Publ.
Corp., New York, 1990.
[14] H. Kido, M. Nakahara, A model of turbulent burning velocity taking the pref-
erential diffusion effect into consideration, JSME Int. J. 41 (1998) 666–673.
[15] D. Bradley, P.H. Gaskell, X.J. Gu, A. Sedaghat, Premixed flamelet modelling: fac-
tors influencing the turbulent heat release rate source term and the turbulent
burning velocity, Combust. Flame 143 (2005) 227–245.
[16] Ya.B. Zel’dovich, G.I. Barenblatt, V.B. Librovich, G.M. Makhviladze, The Mathe-
matical Theory of Combustion and Explosions, Consultants Bureau, New York,
1985.
[17] V. Karpov, A. Lipatnikov, V. Zimont, A test of an engineering model of pre-
mixed turbulent combustion, Proc. Combust. Ins. 26 (1996) 249–257.
[18] V.P. Karpov, A.N. Lipatnikov, V.L. Zimont, Flame curvature as a determinant of
preferential diffusion effects in premixed turbulent combustion, in: W.A. Sirig-
nano, A.G. Merzhanov, L. De Luca (Eds.), Advances in Combustion Science: In
Honor of Ya. B. Zel’dovich, vol. 173, Reston, VA: AIAA, 1997, pp. 235–250.
[19] V.A. Sabelnikov, A.N. Lipatnikov, Transition from pulled to pushed premixed
turbulent flames due to countergradient transport, Combust. Theory Modelling
17 (2013) 1154–1175.
[20] V.A. Sabelnikov, A.N. Lipatnikov, Transition from pulled to pushed fronts in
premixed turbulent combustion: theoretical and numerical study, Combust.
Flame 162 (2015) 2893–2903.
[21] K.Q.N. Kha, V. Robin, A. Mura, M. Champion, Implications of laminar flame fi-
nite thickness on the structure of turbulent premixed flames, J. Fluid Mech.
787 (2016) 116–147.
[22] S. Verma, F. Monnier, A.N. Lipatnikov, Validation of leading point con-
cept in RANS simulations of highly turbulent lean syngas-air flames with
well-pronounced diffusional-thermal effects, Int. J. Hydrogen Energy 46 (2021)
9222–9233.
[23] W. Zhang, J. Wang, Q. Yu, W. Jin, M. Zhang, Z. Huang, Investigation of the fuel
effects on burning velocity and flame structure of turbulent premixed flames
based on leading points concept, Combust. Sci. Technol. 190 (2018) 1354–1376.
[24] S.H. Kim, Leading points and heat release effects in turbulent premixed flames,
Proc. Combust. Inst. 36 (2017) 2017–2024.
[25] H.L. Dave, A. Mohan, S. Chaudhuri, Genesis and evolution of premixed flames
in turbulence, Combust. Flame 196 (2018) 386–399.
[26] A.N. Lipatnikov, N. Chakraborty, V.A. Sabelnikov, Transport equations for reac-
tion rate in laminar and turbulent premixed flames characterized by non-unity
Lewis number, Int. J. Hydrogen Energy 43 (2018) 21060–21069.
[27] A. Amato, M. Day, R.K. Cheng, J. Bell, D. Dasgupta, T. Lieuwen, Topology and
burning rates of turbulent, lean, H2 /air flames, Combust. Flame 162 (2015)
4553–4565.
H. Lee, P. Dai, M. Wan et al.
[28] A.N. Lipatnikov, J. Chomiak, Lewis number effects in premixed turbulent com-
bustion and highly perturbed laminar flames, Combust. Sci. Technol. 137
(1998) 277–298.
[29] H.C. Lee, P. Dai, M. Wan, A.N. Lipatnikov, A DNS study of extreme and leading
points in lean hydrogen-air turbulent flames - part I: local thermochemical
structure and reaction rates, Combust. Flame, in press.
[30] A. Kéromnès, W.K. Metcalfe, K.A. Heufer, N. Donohoe, A.K. Das, C.-J. Sung,
J. Herzler, C. Naumann, P. Griebel, O. Mathieu, M.C. Krejci, E.L. Petersen,
W.J. Pitz, H.J. Curran, An experimental and detailed chemical kinetic modeling
study of hydrogen and syngas mixture oxidation at elevated pressures, Com-
bust. Flame 160 (2013) 995–1011.
[31] A. Abdelsamie, G. Fru, T. Oster, F. Dietzsch, G. Janiga, D. Thévenin, To-
wards direct numerical simulations of low-Mach number turbulent reacting
and two-phase flows using immersed boundaries, Comput. Fluids 131 (2016)
123–141.
[32] T. Lundgren, Linearly Forced Isotropic Turbulence, Tech. Rep., Minnesota Uni-
versity of Minneapolis, 2003.
[33] C. Rosales, C. Meneveau, Linear forcing in numerical simulations of isotropic
turbulence: physical space implementations and convergence properties, Phys.
Fluids 17 (2005) 095106.
[34] P.L. Carroll, G. Blanquart, The effect of velocity field forcing techniques on the
Karman–Howarth equation, J. Turbul. 15 (2014) 429–448.
[35] C. Wang, M. Ge, Applying resolved-scale linearly forced isotropic turbulence in
rational subgrid-scale modeling, Acta Mech. Sin. 35 (2019) 486–494.
[36] P. Pelce, P. Clavin, Influence of hydrodynamics and diffusion upon the stability
limits of laminar premixed flames, J. Fluid Mech. 124 (1982) 219–237.
[37] M. Matalon, B.J. Matkowsky, Flames as gas dynamic discontinuities, J. Fluid
Mech. 124 (1982) 239–260.
[38] A.G. Class, B.J. Matkowsky, A.Y. Klimenko, A unified model of flames as gasdy-
namic discontinuities, J. Fluid Mech. 491 (2003) 11–49.
[39] A.P. Kelley, J.K. Bechtold, C.K. Law, Premixed flame propagation in a confining
vessel with weak pressure rise, J. Fluid Mech. 691 (2012) 26–51.
[40] K.N.C. Bray, R.S. Cant, Some applications of Kolmogorov’s turbulence research
in the field of combustion, Proc. R. Soc. London A 434 (1991) 217–240.
[41] G.K. Giannakopoulos, A. Gatzoulis, C.E. Frouzakis, M. Matalon,
A.G. Tomboulides, Consistent definitions of “Flame Displacement Speed”
and “Markstein Length” for premixed flame propagation, Combust. Flame 162
(2015) 1249–1264.
16
Combustion and Flame 235 (2022) 111712
[42] H.L. Dave, S. Chaudhuri, Evolution of local flame displacement speeds in tur-
bulence, J. Fluid Mech. 884 (2020) A46.
[43] R.G. Abdel-Gayed, K.J. Al-Khishali, D. Bradley, Turbulent burning velocities and
flame straining in explosions, Proc. R. Soc. London A 391 (1984) 393–414.
[44] K.N.C. Bray, Methods of including realistic chemical reaction mechanisms in
turbulent combustion models, in: J. Warnatz, W. Jager (Eds.), Complex Chem-
ical Reaction Systems. Mathematical Modelling and Simulation, Springer, Hei-
delberg (1987), pp. 356–375.
[45] D. Bradley, A.K.C. Lau, M. Lawes, Flame stretch rate as a determinant of turbu-
lent burning velocity, Phil. Trans. R. Soc. London A 338 (1992) 359–387.
[46] V.L. Zimont, A.N. Lipatnikov, To computations of the heat release rate in tur-
bulent flames, Dokl. Phys. Chem. 332 (1993) 592–594.
[47] V.L. Zimont, A.N. Lipatnikov, A numerical model of premixed turbulent com-
bustion, Chem. Phys. Reports 14 (1995) 993–1025.
[48] D. Goodwin, N. Malaya, H. Moffat, R. Speth, Cantera: An object-Oriented Soft-
ware Toolkit for Chemical Kinetics, Thermodynamics, and Transport Processes,
Caltech, Pasadena, CA, 2009.
[49] P. Clavin, G. Joulin, High-frequency response of premixed flames to weak
stretch and curvature: a variable density analysis, Combust. Theory Modelling
1 (1997) 429–446.
[50] J.H. Chen, H.G. Im, Correlation of flame speed with stretch in turbulent pre-
mixed methane-air flames, Proc. Combust. Inst. 27 (1998) 819–826.
[51] N. Peters, P. Terhoeven, J.H. Chen, T. Echekki, Statistics of flame displacement
speeds from computations of 2-D unsteady methane-air flames, Proc. Combust.
Inst. 27 (1998) 833–839.
[52] T. Echekki, J.H. Chen, Analysis of the contribution of curvature to premixed
flame propagation, Combust. Flame 118 (1999) 308–311.
[53] D.W. Mikolaitis, The interaction of flame curvature and stretch, part 1: the
concave premixed flame, Combust. Flame 57 (1984) 25–31.
[54] D.W. Mikolaitis, Stretched spherical cap flames, Combust. Flame 63 (1986)
65–111.
[55] A. Uemichi, M. Nishioka, Combustion mechanism of ultralean rotating counter-
flow twin premixed flame, Combust. Theory Modelling 19 (2015) 57–80.
[56] Z. Zhou, Y. Shoshin, F.E. Hernández-Pérez, J.A. van Ojien, L.P.H. de Goey, Effect
of pressure on the lean limit flames of H2 -CH4 -air mixture in tubes, Combust.
Flame 183 (2017) 113–125.