Two complementary simulations of premixed turbulent flames are discussed. Low Reynolds number two-dimensional direct numerical simulation of a premixed turbulent V flame is first performed, to further analyze the behavior of various flame quantities and to study key ingredients of premixed turbulent combustion modeling. Flame surface density, subgrid-scale variance of progress variables, and unresolved turbulent fluxes are analyzed. These simulations include fully detailed chemistry from a flame-generated tabulation (FPI) and the analysis focuses on the dynamics of the thin flame front. Then, a novel subgrid scale closure for large eddy simulation of premixed turbulent combustion (FSD-PDF) is proposed. It combines the flame surface density (FSD) approach with a presumed probability density function (PDF) of the progress variable that is used in FPI chemistry tabulation. The FSD is useful for introducing in the presumed PDF the influence of the spatially filtered thin reaction zone evolving within the subgrid. This is achieved via the exact relation between the PDF and the FSD. This relation involves the conditional filtered average of the magnitude of the gradient of the progress variable. In the modeling, this conditional filtered mean is approximated from the filtered gradient of the progress variable of the FPI laminar flame. Balance equations providing mean and variance of the progress variable together with the measure of the filtered gradient are used to presume the PDF. A three-dimensional larger Reynolds number flow configuration (ORACLES experiment) is then computed with FSD-PDF and the results are compared with measurements. (c) 2005 The Combustion Institute. Published by Elsevier Inc, All rights reserved.