Focus
Flame acceleration and deflagration-to-detonation transition
Turbulence and turbulent combustion
Fire and mining safety research
Combustion and hydrodynamic instabilities
Flame-acoustic coupling and resonance
Pseudo-combustion phenomena in organic semiconductors
Focus
Often a useful tool, but occasionally the cause of disasters, fire has accompanied mankind for millennia. Protecting our ancestors from the coldness, darkness, predators and stomach bacteria, combustion has brought primitive, tribal humans into the modern industrial society. In spite of the striking achievements in alternative/renewable energy such as solar, wind, and geothermal, as well as nuclear fission/fusion, combustibles will likely remain the dominant source of energy for industry, heating and transportation in the foreseeable future, which strongly motivates the interest in combustion research.
For the last decade, we have worked on several interconnected problems in combustion science: intrinsic flame instabilities; turbulent burning; flame interaction with acoustics, shocks, combustor walls and interior obstacles; and flame acceleration with particular interest in deflagration-to-detonation transition (DDT). Specifically, we have determined turbulent flame speeds in various configurations and analyzed self-similar acceleration of expanding flames in free space; revealed several distinctive stages within the DDT scenario in micro-tubes/channels; developed theories that describe the propagation dynamics and morphology of a flamefront; and substantiated the theories through computational simulations and cooperative experiments. We also consider the extension of combustion science to astrophysics, plasma physics and pseudo-hydrodynamic phenomena in advanced materials such as organic semiconductors.
Flame acceleration and deflagration-to-detonation transition
Turbulence and turbulent combustion
Fire and mining safety research
Combustion and hydrodynamic instabilities
Flame-acoustic coupling and resonance
Pseudo-combustion phenomena in organic semiconductors