Adaptive Spectral Element Simulations of Thin Premixed Flame Sheet Deformations

The high order Spectral Element Method is used to solve the reaction-diffusion-advection problem as described by the premixed flame case. An h–p adaptive refinement-coarsening algorithm is developed based on a posteriori error estimators. Simulations of the wrinkling of a premixed flame front are used to illustrate how the mesh is adaptively refined. A similar, idealized heat transfer problem is used to show the adaptive refinement and coarsening of the mesh. Adaptivity efficiently provides high resolution in areas of the domain where large or rapidly varying physical changes exist, while saving unnecessary computation where the solution is smooth or physical phenomena have passed by.