This paper presents a new model of explosion propagation in a closed vessel. The foundation of the formulation is a sub-model of turbulent burning velocity based on the assumption that the burning velocity of a turbulent wrinkled flame can be determined from the flame surface. In addition, model development includes simple sub-models of heat transfer and free convection. In order to verify the physics, the model was utilized to simulate the explosion of a methane-air mixture in two different test vessels. The results obtained by use of this new model were compared with results obtained by use of the classical model. While the simulations showed that both are accurate, the new model presented in this paper (called "flame surface model" for simplicity) is more flexible and can easily accommodate sub-models of different phenomena that can play an important role in fuel-air explosions. (c) 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.