Combustion, Instability, and Acoustics

Combustion is currently the dominant energy producing mechanism. Combustion chemistry remains a central process to our civilization. Combustion and turbulence is a difficult topic because it combines a very difficult research area with reaction chemistry involving an oxidizer. We are interested in understanding combustion turbulence and reacting flows. Combustion is also a very loud phenomenon. We are interested in prediction the noise from combustion processes and combustors. We are most interested in prediction combustion instability using combined theory and computation. In particular, we are interested in combustion instability caused by thermo-acoustic effects.

Nobody knows what the energy source of the future is but it involves combustion.

Flame Ignition Kernel in Turbulent Combustion Courtesy of Prof. R. Houim
Flame Ignition Kernel in Turbulent Combustion Courtesy of Prof. R. Houim