Lasers, Flames, and Aerosols: Recent results in combustion research

Dr. Derek Dunn-Rankin
Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
University of California, Irvine

With the acute global link between energy utilization and environmental impact, the fundamental understanding of combustion processes has never been more important. Rather than focus on a single topic, this presentation surveys some of the recent combustion research activities at the University of California, Irvine relevant to this link. The studies include improved efficiency of miniature liquid fueled combustion systems, electrical properties of diffusion and partial premixed flames, controlled breakup of droplet streams, fuel emulsion formation and sprays of emulsified fuels, flame holding in a model turbine burner channel, ammonium bisulfate formation in the simulated flue gas from a coal boiler, control of a carbon-in-ash from pulverized coal and coal/biomass combustion, and homogeneous charge compression ignition (HCCI) in a small-scale engine.

Dr. Derek Dunn-Rankin, Professor in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, received his Ph.D. degree (1985) from the University of California, Berkeley, with an emphasis in combustion science. He was a post-doctoral researcher at Sandia National Laboratories Combustion Research Facility in Livermore until 1987, when he joined the faculty of Mechanical Engineering at the University of California, Irvine.

Dr. Dunn-Rankin has more than 250 technical publications documenting research in droplet and sprays, applications of laser diagnostic techniques to practical engineering systems, and combustion control.

Professor Dunn-Rankin is currently the UCI Faculty Director for CAMP, the California Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation, a program designed to increase minority representation in science and technology.

Dr. Dunn-Rankin received a National Science Foundation Presidential Young Investigator Award in 1989, the Society of Automotive Engineering Ralph R. Teetor Engineering Educator Award in 1991, and a Fulbright Scholar Fellowship in 1997. He is past chair of the Western States Section of the International Combustion Institute. His current activities include the study of combustion in highly accelerating flows, fluid mechanics of water/oil emulsions, fundamentals of coal combustion, and applications of electric fields for the active manipulation of sprays and flames.