High-performance Computing for Turbulent Hydrogen Mixing and Combustion: From Fundamentals to Engineering Applications

Abstract

Hydrogen (H2) has attracted considerable attention in recent years as a promising alternative fuel. However, its applications in advanced propulsion and energy conversion systems still face significant challenges due its unique thermochemical properties, such as low energy density, high diffusivity, and high flame speed, etc. These characteristics (1) substantially complicate fuel-air mixing and combustion processes, which strongly affect the efficiency, pollutant emissions, and stabilities of H2-fueled combustion systems, and (2) bring difficulties to the development of predictive numerical tools that are essential for rapid engine design and optimisation in industry. To address these challenges, Dr Wang has conducted a series of direct numerical simulations (DNS) of turbulent H2 mixing and combustion processes to advance the fundamental understanding and to develop accurate reduced-order models informed by high-fidelity DNS data. This seminar will present two representative examples: the H2 jet in air crossflow and turbulent statistically planar lean premixed hydrogen/air flames. Based on these DNS data, a novel turbulent scalar mixing model and an improved turbulent combustion model were developed. Both models have been implemented in the Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokers (RANS) simulations of an industrial pure H2 engine, where they demonstrated excellent predictive performance.

Speaker

Dr Yiqing Wang is a Postdoctoral Researcher in the Transportation and Power System division at Argonne national laboratory. He obtained his PhD in Fluid Mechanics (2022) and BEng degree in Engineering Mechanics (2017) from Peking University. His research focuses on advancing the scientific understanding and the predictive modelling of various combustion systems via high-performance computing. His research interests include reduced-order modelling of turbulent reacting flows, flame-chemistry interactions, detonation combustion, and pollutant formation (e.g., soot and NOx). He has published 36 papers in prestigious journals, such as Combustion and Flame, Proceedings of the Combustion Institute, and Journal of Fluid Mechanics. He also received several awards for his research, including Argonne Outstanding Postdoctoral Performance Award (2025), the Distinguished Paper Award at the 39th International Symposium of Combustion (2023), the Chung-Hua Wu Outstanding Postgraduate Student Award from the Chinese Academy of Sciences (2022), and Best Paper Awards at the China National Symposium on Combustion (2020 & 2017).