12/02/14 9:50 pmBen T. Zinn Combustion Laboratory: Research

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Georgia Tech College of Engineering School of Aerospace Engineering

Ben T. Zinn Combustion Laboratory: Research

Publications

Caroline GenzaleTim LieuwenJeff JagodaSuresh MenonJerry SeitzmanMitchell WalkerVigor YangBen Zinn

Current ResearchAlternative Fuels:

Alternative fuels, known as non-conventional or advanced fuels, are any materials or substances that can be usedas fuels, other than conventional fuels. Conventional fuels include: fossil fuels (petroleum (oil), coal, propane, andnatural gas), as well as nuclear materials such as uranium and thorium, as well as artificial radioisotope fuels thatare made in nuclear reactors, and store their energy. Some well-known alternative fuels include biodiesel,bioalcohol (methanol, ethanol, butanol), chemically stored electricity (batteries and fuel cells), hydrogen, non-fossilmethane, non-fossil natural gas, vegetable oil, and other biomass sources.

Sprays:

A spray is a dynamic collection of drops dispersed in a gas. The process of forming a spray is known as atomization.A spray nozzle is the device used to generate a spray. The two main uses of sprays are to distribute material over across-section and to generate liquid surface area. There are thousands of applications in which sprays allowmaterial to be used most efficiently. The spray characteristics required must be understood in order to select themost appropriate technology, optimal device and size.

Oxy Combustion:

Oxy combustion is the process of burning a fuel using pure oxygen instead of air as the primary oxidant. Since thenitrogen component of air is not heated, fuel consumption is reduced, and higher flame temperatures are possible.Historically, the primary use of oxy combustion has been in welding and cutting of metals, especially steel, sinceoxy-fuel allows for higher flame temperatures than can be achieved with an air-fuel flame.

Combustion Instabilities:

Combustion instabilities in modern high-performance propulsion systems are often manifested as large amplitudepressure oscillations and can result in serious performance degradation. These pressure oscillations are oftencoupled with oscillations in heat release as well as oscillations in the combustor through-flows. The couplingbetween various oscillatory phenomena has often been traced to an acoustic resonance of a system componentwhich acts as a host for the coupled oscillations.

Dynamic Combustion Phenomena:

The combustion lab is doing research on different specific occurrences or phenomena produced duringcombustion. These include physics and modeling of blowoff, combustion instabilities, flame-acoustic interactions,hydrodynamic stability in combustion environments, flashback and turbulent flame speeds.

Industrial Burners:

Industrial burners use industrial combustion to produce energy. Industrial combustion is defined as the rapidoxidation of hydrocarbon fuels to generate large quantities of energy for use in industrial heating and meltingprocesses.

Internal Combustion Engines:

The internal combustion engine is an engine in which the combustion of a fuel (normally a fossil fuel) occurs withan oxidizer (usually air) in a combustion chamber that is an integral part of the working fluid flow circuit. In aninternal combustion engine, the expansion of the high-temperature and high -pressure gases produced bycombustion apply direct force to some component of the engine. This force is applied typically to pistons, turbineblades, or a nozzle. This force moves the component over a distance, transforming chemical energy into usefulmechanical energy.

Gas Turbine Combustion:

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12/02/14 9:50 pmBen T. Zinn Combustion Laboratory: Research

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In gas turbine combustion energy is added to the gas stream in the combustor, where fuel is mixed with air andignited. In the high pressure environment of the combustor, combustion of the fuel increases the temperature. Theproducts of the combustion are forced into the turbine section. There, the high velocity and volume of the gas flowis directed through a nozzle over the turbine's blades, spinning the turbine which powers the compressor and, forsome turbines, drives their mechanical output. The energy given up to the turbine comes from the reduction in thetemperature and pressure of the exhaust gas.

Combustion and Pollutant Formation:

The burning of fuels leads to the formation of a number of pollutants including: carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide,carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide, and more. Combustion emissions account for over half of the fine particle airpollution and most of the primary particulate organic matter.

Turbulent Combustion:

Air and fuel mix violently during turbulent combustion. The ferocious mixing is needed to ignite fuel and sustainits burning. Turbulent combustion sits at the interface of two important nonlinear, multiscale phenomena:chemistry and turbulence. Its study is extremely timely in view of the need to develop new combustion technologiesin order to address challenges associated with climate change, energy source uncertainty, and air pollution.

Combustion Modeling:

Combustion models are built to replicate combustion systems in the real world through simplification, to performan experiment that cannot be done in the real world, or to assemble several known ideas into a coherent whole tobuild and test hypotheses.

High Speed Combustion:

Combustion research for combustion at high speeds. High-speed combustion of gaseous reactants displays avariety of phenomena, including flame acceleration, deflagration-to-detonation transition (DDT), detonationinstability, and quenching.

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