Engineering Research Equipment: Laser Diagnostics for Microscale and Microwave Enhanced Combustion

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ABSTRACTThis award supports the installation of a laser-based combustion diagnostic system including a Nd:YAG pulsed laser, a Nd:YAG-pumped dye laser, a spectrometer, and an image intensified camera in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering (MAE) at Princeton University. This equipment will be used to support fundamental research on microscale combustion, microwave-enhanced combustion, non-equilibrium plasma-assisted combustion, and high-pressure combustion, and to augment the educational curriculum. Primarily, the equipment supports research to investigate unique phenomena in microscale combustion due to wall-flame interactions and non-continuum mass transport, microwave-flame interactions in microwave- enhanced combustion, and electron-impact dissociation in non-equilibrium plasma-discharged flames, as well as flame dynamics at high pressures. The equipment and the new diagnostic approaches developed will be integrated into both the graduate and undergraduate laboratory courses to enhance student training. Filtered Rayleigh scattering and two-line LIF, developed by use of this equipment, will be demonstrated to both undergraduate and graduate laboratory classes to familiarize students with the state of the art capabilities in combustion diagnostics. The participation of the undergraduates in the research laboratories will provide a unique opportunity for the students. The equipment will also be integrated into the summer "hands-on science" program for minority high school students from Trenton High School. In addition, the equipment will be used in on-campus collaboration with Princeton Energy Center and inter-university collaboration with the Plasma Research Center in Drexel University.