In the present paper, turbulent jet diffusion flames are investigated numerically using a finite volume method for the solution of the Navier-Stokes and reaction equations governing the problem. The method is based on a finite volume discretization and the SIMPLE approach for velocity and pressure coupling. For validation of the modeling of turbulence and numerical method, results are shown for an inert turbulent jet flow. Different versions of the standard k-epsilon turbulence model including the Rodi correction are compared with experimental results by Panchapakesan and Lumley. The focus is on the investigation of an axisymmetric turbulent hydrogen/air diffusion flame using a time-dependent numerical model with a detailed chemical mechanism. The chemical reactions are described by nine species and 16 or 17 pairs of elementary steps. The transport and thermodynamic physical properties for each species and gas mixture are obtained from the CHEMKIN-II package. An algebraic correlation closure (ACC) model is used for the coupling of turbulence and chemistry. The temperature and major species (H-2, O-2, H2O, N-2) distributions are in good agreement with the experimental measurements. The numerical results obtained from the detailed chemistry calculations depend on how the turbulent diffusion coefficients are selected for the species and energy equations. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.