Fokion N. Egolfopoulos

William E. Leonhard Professor in Engineering
Department of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering
University of Southern California

"Understanding Reacting Flows under Engine-Relevant Conditions:  Historical Trends and Some Recent Developments"

Thursday, October 5, 2017 @ 11:00 a.m.
Montgomery Knight Room 317

Abstract:
Combustion science is nearly 100 years old and major advances have been made since Nikolai Semenov determined in the 1920’s that “mechanisms of chemical reactions and in particular chain reactions” is essential towards the understanding of “combustion and explosion processes.”  Many believe that the most profound example of the contributions of combustion science remains the notable reduction of pollutant emissions since the 1970’s, which was achieved through the understanding of their formation mechanisms.  However, there are many open-ended questions regarding the relevance of the current state of combustion science to applications that operate at high pressures and temperatures in the presence of highly turbulent flows, and involve complex multicomponent liquid fuels.  In order to characterize with confidence the operational behavior and limits of engines after identifying the controlling mechanisms, the science that needs to be tackled is rather complicated under such extreme conditions and in many ways it appears to be a daunting task.  In this presentation, some issues will be discussed in the context of the engine-relevant thermodynamic and flow parameter space, and possible ways to move forward will be outlined through examples that are based on recent developments.

Fokion N. Egolfopoulos is a William E. Leonhard Professor of Engineering in the Department of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering at the University of Southern California.  He obtained his Diploma degree in 1981 from the National Technical University of Athens, and his Ph.D. degree in 1990 from the University of California at Davis after having spent the last two years of his doctoral research at Princeton University.   He was a recipient of the Silver Medal of the Combustion Institute at the Twenty-Second International Combustion Symposium.  He is a Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) and an Associate Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA).  Since January 2009 he is the co-Editor in Chief of Combustion and Flame, after having served as an Associate Editor of the journal from January 2003 until December 2008.