Computational Turbulent Reacting Flow
The CTRFlow group studies fundamental
aspects of turbulent reacting flows through high performance computing, with an
emphasis on combustion in nonpremixed flames. The group is led by David O.
Lignell, who is a Professor in the Chemical Engineering Department and teaches
courses in computational tools, numerical methods, combustion, and fluid
mechanics. skills.
Our research focus is on flames and fires
including soot formation, flame extinction and reigntion phenomena, and
multiphase flows including coal and biomass combustion, and Lagrangian particle
transport. Combustion is central to society and approximately 85% of the
world's energy derives from the burning of fossile fuels. Indeed, we heat our
homes, drive our cars, and light our lives by the energy of the flame. We are
working to improve modeling and simulation capabilities of turbulent reacting
flows to develop a better fundamental understanding of the key physics, to
generate high fidelity data for model validation, and to develop and improve
models for combustion engineering, design, and hazard analysis. We use
primarily three complementary simulation approaches: LES, DNS, and ODT, and are
developing novel stochastic simulation techniques including the Heirarchical
Parcel Swapping (HiPS) method.