Liquid fuel hydrocarbon combustion dominates the transportation space, particularly within the US Air Force and in many aerospace applications. There is considerable cost, regulatory, and environmental pressure toward reducing liquid fuel consumption and converting to sustainable and alternative fuels. Combustion in practical propulsion systems involves interactions between fluid dynamics, heat transfer, thermodynamics and chemical kinetics in heterogeneous fuel-oxidizer mixtures of multicomponent hydrocarbon fuels at short timescales. Experimental needs in combustion kinetics include quantifying fuel ignition properties, identifying rate-limiting intermediate reactions, and providing rate coefficients required for computational modelling. The US Air Force Academy has installed a 60 atm maximum test pressure shock tube for combustion kinetics. The shock tube will be a resource to the USAF and Department of Defense (DoD), as well as a center for collaborations in combustion research across the Colorado front range and nationwide. The newly installed tube is instrumented for fuel and intermediate hydrocarbon sensing, and ignition delay via chemiluminescence and pressure. Additional experimental facilities include two full-scale jet engines, a detonation combustor, a liquid fuel spray burner, a piston-engine based hybrid UAV power system, and a McKenna burner. The suite of laser-based chemistry diagnostics available in the laboratory also includes Laser-Induced Fluorescence and a fourier transform infrared spectrometer. We seek to develop and implement advanced laser diagnostics as required for novel shock-tube kinetics investigations.

Keywords:

Chemical kinetics; laser diagnostics; Air-breathing propulsion; Gas turbine; Internal combustion engine; detonation; hypersonics; combustion modelling

Citizenship:  Open to U.S. citizens

Level:  Open to Postdoctoral and Senior applicants