Combustion and Energy Systems

LES of reacting spray jets

 

The Combustion and Energy Systems area seeks to focus on technologies for efficient energy conversion, storage and utilization, which aim to meet the urgent challenge of a safe, reliable and sustainable energy supply in the face of ever-growing demand and increasing geo-political uncertainty. Overall, our research spans the following technical areas: energy harvesting and storage, battery technology, thermal management of portable energy sources, energy storage materials, computational material science, electrochemical energy conversion and chemically reacting systems, combustion of fossil fuels, ignition and flame stabilization, and CFD of reactive flows. Our research on these subjects involves creative synthesis, sustainable technologies and engineering solution.

Research Areas

 

    • Solar-assisted water-splitting for H2 generation: prototype development

    • PEM Fuel cell: quantification of aging using inverse technique

    • CO2 sequestration in hydrate form using injection-depressurization technique: model/solver development

    • Accidental release of high-pressure hydrogen: simulation using commercial solvers

    • Thermal management of vehicular battery packs

    • Development of battery modules for efficient heat transfer

    • Recycling rechargeable energy storage systems

    • Concentrated solar thermal technology - system and material challenges

    • Futuristic energy storage and harvesting

    • Multi-scale multi-physics material modeling

    • Modeling of turbulence-chemistry interaction in spray flames

    • Stabilization mechanism in lifted jet diffusion flame

    • Investigation of autoignition in turbulent H2 jet in a hot coflow

    • CFD of reactive flows using LES/DNS


Research Laboratories:


  • Computational Fluid Dynamics Laboratory

  • Energy Conversion and Storage Laboratory

 

Associated Faculty

 

Jishnu Bhattacharya, PhD (Univ. Michigan): thermodynamics, heat transfer, energy storage materials, atomic scale computation, multi-scale modeling

Malay K. Das, Ph.D (Penn State): electrochemical energy conversion and chemically reacting systems

Santanu De, PhD (IISc Bangalore): RANS, LES and DNS of reactive flows, advanced turbulent combustion modeling (Flamelet, CMC, MMC and PDF method), flame stabilization, extinction/re-ignition, auto-ignition, spray atomization and combustion


 

Prototype development for Solar-assisted water-splitting for H2 generation

Numerical simulation of accidental release of high-pressure hydrogen through a 5 mm dia opening