12/02/14 9:50 pm Ben T.

Zinn Combustion Laboratory: Research

Page 1 of 2 http://www.comblab.ae.gatech.edu/comblabResearchMain.html

Georgia Tech College of Engineering School of Aerospace Engineering
Ben T. Zinn Combustion Laboratory: Research
Publications
Caroline Genzale
Tim Lieuwen
Jeff Jagoda
Suresh Menon
Jerry Seitzman
Mitchell Walker
Vigor Yang
Ben Zinn
Current Research
Alternative Fuels:
Alternative fuels, known as non-conventional or advanced fuels, are any materials or substances that can be used
as fuels, other than conventional fuels. Conventional fuels include: fossil fuels (petroleum (oil), coal, propane, and
natural gas), as well as nuclear materials such as uranium and thorium, as well as artificial radioisotope fuels that
are made in nuclear reactors, and store their energy. Some well-known alternative fuels include biodiesel,
bioalcohol (methanol, ethanol, butanol), chemically stored electricity (batteries and fuel cells), hydrogen, non-fossil
methane, non-fossil natural gas, vegetable oil, and other biomass sources.
Sprays:
A spray is a dynamic collection of drops dispersed in a gas. The process of forming a spray is known as atomization.
A spray nozzle is the device used to generate a spray. The two main uses of sprays are to distribute material over a
cross-section and to generate liquid surface area. There are thousands of applications in which sprays allow
material to be used most efficiently. The spray characteristics required must be understood in order to select the
most appropriate technology, optimal device and size.
Oxy Combustion:
Oxy combustion is the process of burning a fuel using pure oxygen instead of air as the primary oxidant. Since the
nitrogen component of air is not heated, fuel consumption is reduced, and higher flame temperatures are possible.
Historically, the primary use of oxy combustion has been in welding and cutting of metals, especially steel, since
oxy-fuel allows for higher flame temperatures than can be achieved with an air-fuel flame.
Combustion Instabilities:
Combustion instabilities in modern high-performance propulsion systems are often manifested as large amplitude
pressure oscillations and can result in serious performance degradation. These pressure oscillations are often
coupled with oscillations in heat release as well as oscillations in the combustor through-flows. The coupling
between various oscillatory phenomena has often been traced to an acoustic resonance of a system component
which acts as a host for the coupled oscillations.
Dynamic Combustion Phenomena:
The combustion lab is doing research on different specific occurrences or phenomena produced during
combustion. These include physics and modeling of blowoff, combustion instabilities, flame-acoustic interactions,
hydrodynamic stability in combustion environments, flashback and turbulent flame speeds.
Industrial Burners:
Industrial burners use industrial combustion to produce energy. Industrial combustion is defined as the rapid
oxidation of hydrocarbon fuels to generate large quantities of energy for use in industrial heating and melting
processes.
Internal Combustion Engines:
The internal combustion engine is an engine in which the combustion of a fuel (normally a fossil fuel) occurs with
an oxidizer (usually air) in a combustion chamber that is an integral part of the working fluid flow circuit. In an
internal combustion engine, the expansion of the high-temperature and high -pressure gases produced by
combustion apply direct force to some component of the engine. This force is applied typically to pistons, turbine
blades, or a nozzle. This force moves the component over a distance, transforming chemical energy into useful
mechanical energy.
Gas Turbine Combustion:
Home About Research Personnel Contact
12/02/14 9:50 pm Ben T. Zinn Combustion Laboratory: Research
Page 2 of 2 http://www.comblab.ae.gatech.edu/comblabResearchMain.html
In gas turbine combustion energy is added to the gas stream in the combustor, where fuel is mixed with air and
ignited. In the high pressure environment of the combustor, combustion of the fuel increases the temperature. The
products of the combustion are forced into the turbine section. There, the high velocity and volume of the gas flow
is directed through a nozzle over the turbine's blades, spinning the turbine which powers the compressor and, for
some turbines, drives their mechanical output. The energy given up to the turbine comes from the reduction in the
temperature and pressure of the exhaust gas.
Combustion and Pollutant Formation:
The burning of fuels leads to the formation of a number of pollutants including: carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide,
carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide, and more. Combustion emissions account for over half of the fine particle air
pollution and most of the primary particulate organic matter.
Turbulent Combustion:
Air and fuel mix violently during turbulent combustion. The ferocious mixing is needed to ignite fuel and sustain
its burning. Turbulent combustion sits at the interface of two important nonlinear, multiscale phenomena:
chemistry and turbulence. Its study is extremely timely in view of the need to develop new combustion technologies
in order to address challenges associated with climate change, energy source uncertainty, and air pollution.
Combustion Modeling:
Combustion models are built to replicate combustion systems in the real world through simplification, to perform
an experiment that cannot be done in the real world, or to assemble several known ideas into a coherent whole to
build and test hypotheses.
High Speed Combustion:
Combustion research for combustion at high speeds. High-speed combustion of gaseous reactants displays a
variety of phenomena, including flame acceleration, deflagration-to-detonation transition (DDT), detonation
instability, and quenching.
Contact Us | College of Engineering | Legal & Privacy Info | Accountability
635 Strong St, Atlanta GA 30318 Phone: 404.463.0886 Fax: 404.463.0888