Physics-guided laminar flame speed correlation for methane-hydrogen-air mixtures with varying dilution

Abstract

Fuel-flexible, low-carbon combustion systems need to accommodate methane/hydrogen mixtures with air and exhaust-gas dilution. To develop these, we require accurate and efficient correlations for laminar flame speed (LFS). In this work, we introduce a physics-guided LFS correlation that applies to burners, gas engines, and turbines. Our model uses a core-kinetic approach based on flame temperatures, an algebraic function for the equivalence ratio, and a mass-flux-based blending law. This allows for accurate predictions with any methane/hydrogen blend. We set the model parameters using one-dimensional flame simulations with C3Mech v4.0.1, chosen for its high prediction accuracy for a wide range of experimental data, including new results from our spherical combustion chamber. The new correlation provides accuracy comparable to a machine learning approach (Gaussian process regression), yet remains physically consistent, differentiable, and extrapolates well. This makes it suitable for computational fluid dynamics and control of fuel-flexible combustion systems.