MMI’s Dr. Sean Malkeson recently presented a paper at the Joint Meeting of British, Portuguese and Spanish Combustion Institutes, which took place between the 12th and 13thof April at Cambridge University.  The paper, entitled ‘Analysis of the Co-variance of Fuel Mass Fraction and Mixture Fraction in Turbulent Flame-Droplet Interaction: A Direct Numerical Simulation Study’, was co-authored by Dr. Daniel Wacks (Durham University), Mr. Lizhong Yi (Newcastle University), and Prof. Nilanjan Chakraborty (Newcastle University).

The paper related to the fundamental understanding and modelling of turbulent combustion in droplet-laden mixtures (sometimes referred to as turbulent spray combustion).  Turbulent spray combustion has applications ranging from Direct Injection (DI) engines to Compression Ignition (CI) engines and gas turbines.  The ability to control and accurately predict this phenomena offers the potential to significantly increase efficiencies in these combustion devices as well as reduce harmful emissions, saving money and protecting the environment in the process.  The accurate modelling of the covariance of fuel mass fraction and mixture fraction is required for the accurate modelling of the reaction rate in turbulent spray flames, which can, in turn, aid in the design of future generations of the aforementioned higher efficiency, lower emission engines.

The Combustion Institute is an international non-profit, scientific and educational organization, founded in 1954, which serves the purpose to promote and disseminate combustion research. Fundamental and applied scientific disciplines contribute to this research which has strong ties to technical and industrial processes.