Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Professor Stephen Pope has been developing computational methods to simulate the combustion of fuel in engines and other combustion devices. The underlying physics and chemistry are largely known, but statistical modeling of the turbulent flow and simplification of the combustion chemistry are necessary in order to make the computations tractable. Pope’s research group has developed the probability density function method to account for turbulent fluctuations and various methods to speed up the computational implementation of the combustion chemistry. One such method—in situ adaptive tabulation—typically produces speed-up factors of 100 to 1,000. These methods have been implemented in the leading computational fluid dynamics software, Fluent, and hence are available for widespread use in industry.

Professor Fred Gouldin in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering is also conducting research that will help in the development of efficient, lowemission combustion systems for automobile engines, gas turbines, and jet engines.

Gouldin has developed a new imaging method— laser-induced crossed-plane imaging—for studying the effects of flow turbulence on combustion. By combining this imaging method with stereo-particle image velocimetry (SPIV)—a newly developed, laserbased, optical method for measuring the velocity of a gas simultaneously at multiple locations in a plane—his group is studying the relationship between the turbulence-induced changes in combustion zone structure as quantified by crossed-plane imaging and the perturbing, turbulent velocity field as measured by SPIV.

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Professor Elizabeth Fisher, whose interests in combustion chemistry include a variety of practical problems such as fire suppression, hazardous waste incineration, and pollutant formation from fuel combustion, is collaborating with Gouldin, the developer of numerous experimental techniques, on research on the incineration and thermal treatment of chemical agents and chemical weapons. She is also investigating the properties of flames under conditions relevant to carbon sequestration. One way to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide is to separate it from combustion products and store it underground. Fisher’s research relates to oxycombustion with recycled flue gas dilution, a technique that facilitates separation of carbon dioxide for carbon sequestration.