Supervisor:
Dr. Ajay K. Agrawal
Location:
109 Hardway Hall Annex
This facility
developed within the past 3 years supports several ongoing combustion research
projects supervised by Dr. Agrawal. It
offers dedicated a compressed air supply system and venting systems to
discharge combustion products. The
laboratory holds six combustion test chambers to conduct a range of reacting
and non-reacting flow experiments; biodiesel combustion, coal gas combustion,
combustion using porous inert medium, meso-scale liquid fuel combustion,
etc. The laboratory stores a variety of
liquid and gaseous fuels for experiments and calibration gases to calibrate gas
analyzers. Laminar flow element systems
and mass flow meters are used to meter and control air and gas fuel flow rates. Lab View based data acquisition systems with
two dedicated computers are used for automated data acquisition at high
sampling rates. The lab also has four
networked computer systems for data analysis and post-processing. Major instruments available in the laboratory
are listed below.
Image-intensified CCD camera system for OH*
chemiluminescence and fluorescence measurements
High
speed digital imaging systems for flame photography
Portable rainbow schlieren system with an
optical table
Two,
Horiba Gas Analysis systems for CO, CO CO2, HC, NOx, measurements
Two,
Nova Gas Analysis systems for CO, CO CO2, NOx measurements
Gas
chromatograph system for product gas analysis
Fast
response pressure measurement and analysis system
Microphone
based noise measurement systems
Flow
meters, mass controllers, and fuel mixing systems
Signal
conditioning and data acquisition systems
Electrical
systems to supply heated combustion air
Optical
Diagnostics Laboratory:
Supervisor:
Dr. Ajay K. Agrawal
Location:
133 AIME
This facility support flow and combustion diagnostics
research under the supervision of Dr. Agrawal.
Currently, three rainbow schlieren deflectometry systems are operational
in this laboratory. Each system consists
of light source, optical components, imager, and associated accessories;
supported on two 8’x4’ optical tables.
The first system consists of two orthogonal schlieren apparatuses
configured in the cross-beam mode to measure scalar properties in turbulent low
density jets and flames. The second
system is specially designed for measurements in micro-jets and flames, and it
permits spatial resolution of better than 10 mm. This system has been used to quantify
supersonic micro-jets and near-field flow field of fuel injectors. The third system is a general purpose
instrument used to develop strategies to contain gas leakage from compressed
hydrogen storage facility. The lab has
three high-speed imaging systems to acquire schlieren images at framing rates
of up to 5000 Hz.
Recently, we
have placed order for a two-component phase-Doppler particle analysis (PDPA)
system from TSI, and we expect this system to become operational in Summer
2008. The PDPA system will allow us to
perform point-wise velocity measurements (i.e., laser Doppler velocimetry) and
spray size distribution measurements in fluid flows relevant to advanced
combustion systems. The PDPA system will
be configured so it could be used in both labs supervised by Dr. Agrawal