Combustion and flame dynamics

Combustion and flame dynamics examines how chemical reactions, fluid turbulence, and heat release interact to sustain or destabilize flames in practical systems like gas turbines, aircraft engines, and small-scale power devices. Predicting this behavior requires tools such as Large-Eddy Simulation, which resolves the largest turbulent structures while modeling finer scales, alongside detailed chemical kinetics that track how fuel molecules break down and react under extreme conditions. A persistent challenge is understanding thermoacoustic instability, where pressure oscillations and unsteady heat release reinforce each other and can damage or destroy combustion hardware. Active research directions include controlling these instabilities in swirl-stabilized burners, extending models to microscale combustion where surface effects become significant, and developing faster chemical mechanisms accurate enough to embed in large-scale simulations.

Works

98,939

Total citations

1,193,847

Keywords

Large-Eddy SimulationTurbulent FlamesCombustion InstabilitiesPremixed CombustionFlame DynamicsMicroscale Combustion