Sunderland Receives NSF Award for Newly Discovered Class of Flame
Peter Sunderland, a keystone professor and director of undergraduate studies in the University of Maryland (UMD) Department of Fire Protection Engineering (FPE), received a $360,000 award from the National Science Foundation (NSF) for his three-year research project on cool pool diffusion flames. Cool diffusion flames are unusual due to the low temperature at which they burn – between 500 and 1000 degrees K (i.e., 440 F to 1340 F) – compared to 2000 K for traditional flames. Their original discovery in 2012 has already resulted in an improved understanding of ignition; however, further progress in related research has been hindered due to the high cost and complexity of the required experimental facilities. To that end, Sunderland seeks to reduce this cost by developing a novel facility that burns fuel pools in cool flames, and improve the understanding of cool diffusion flames by performing detailed measurements, comparing them to computational simulations. Many liquid fuels will be considered, including pure hydrocarbons, traditional transportation fuels, and renewable bio-derived fuels. It is unknown which of these fuels can burn in air as cool diffusion flames, and at what temperatures and mixture fractions. Another unknown is whether, or not, they can support warm diffusion flames, which burn at slightly hotter temperatures, and if these flames can exist without an external heat source. Sunderland and his research team also aim to characterize flame temperatures, compositions, burning rates, and emissions. They will perform autoignition simulations with Cantera software, using various chemical kinetics models, and compare the predictions with the measurements.
June 27, 2023 Prev Next |
