Dr. N. Swaminathan

"FlaRe Approach for Premixed and Partially-Premixed Combustion"

Monday, January 22, 2018 @ 11:00 a.m
Montgomery Knight Rm 317

About the talk:
Premixed and partially premixed combustion is ubiquitous in practical combustion systems such as stationary and aero gas turbines.  However, the modelling of these combustion modes in turbulent flows is challenging.  Flamelet approach which views the turbulent flame as collection of flamelets helps to build a practically useful modelling approach but one must pay attention to the physical consistencies among various physical processes involved and their modelling. This important requirement is commonly overlooked in past studies leading one to conclude that the flamelet approach is inadequate and sophisticated approaches may be required.  The FlaRe approach (Flamelets Revised for physical consistencies) devotes attention to these details while keeping the modelling framework simple enough (low computational cost) for practical applications with complex geometries.  This talk will discuss this approach highlighting how the physical & mathematical consistencies are maintained among the sub-models along with few examples for its application. 

About the speaker:
N. Swaminathan is Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Cambridge University and has held and also currently holding many distinguished visiting professorship across the globe.  His research aims to shed lights on fundamental aspects and practical modelling of various facets of turbulence and combustion using mainly numerical approach leading to simple mathematical models for industry use. He has worked in industry (GE R&D Centre & Tata Consulting Services) and acted as a consultant to Pratt & Whitney, Rolls-Royce Marine Engines, Bergen Engines, Siemens, MHI and Ricardo Plc.   His research is supported by EPSRC, industries such as Rolls-Royce, Siemens and Mitshubishi, several overseas (outside UK) research organisations, and European Commission. He is on the editorial board of few journals in the area of energy, combustion and fluids, member of the advisory board of GCOE in TokyoTech (2008-2013) and, member of the advisory board and an international co-operative member for ACEEES (Academy for Co-creative Education of Environment and Energy Science) programme in TokyoTech (2013-2017).  He and his co-authors were awarded the prestigious Sugden Prize (by Combustion Institute British Section) for their paper on combustion noise in 2011.  He has published nearly 200 papers in the areas of turbulence and combustion, and co-edited a book with Professor Bray on Turbulent Premixed Flames published by CUP in 2011.