Elvia Thompson
Headquarters, Washington, DC August 26, 1998
(Phone: 202/358-1696)

RELEASE: 98-152

NASA ANNOUNCES RESEARCH GRANTS IN MICROGRAVITY COMBUSTION SCIENCE

NASA has selected 49 researchers to receive grants totaling approximately $20,000,000 to conduct microgravity combustion research. Forty one of the grants are to conduct ground-based research, while the remaining eight are flight definition efforts. Eighteen of these grants are for continuation of work currently being funded by NASA, but the majority (31) represent new research efforts.

The investigators will have NASA's microgravity research facilities such as drop-tubes, drop-towers, aircraft flying parabolic trajectories, and sounding rockets at their disposal, with the flight-definition investigators working toward experiments on a space-flight test bed. Sponsored by NASA's Office of Life and Microgravity Science and Applications, this research offers investigators the opportunity to take advantage of a low-gravity environment to improve understanding of fundamental physical and chemical processes associated with combustion

NASA received 155 proposals in response to its research announcement in this research area. These proposals were all peer-reviewed by scientific and technical experts from academia, government, and industry. In addition, those proposals selected for flight definition were reviewed in terms of engineering feasibility by a team from the Lewis Research Center. A list of awardees (by state), their institutions, and research titles follows:

Flight Definition Tasks
 
California
Dr. Robert K. Cheng
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Berkeley, CA
"Field Effects of Gravity on Lean Premixed Turbulent Flames"
 
Professor Paul D. Ronney
University of Southern California
Los Angeles, CA
"Transport and Chemical Effects on Concurrent and Opposed-Flow Flame Spread at Microgravity"
 
Illinois
Professor Mun Young Choi
University of Illinois, Chicago
Chicago, IL
"Experiments and Model Development for Investigation of Sooting and Radiation Effects in Microgravity Droplet Combustion"
 
 
Massachusetts
Professor James C. Hermanson
Worcester Polytechnic Institute
Worcester, MA
"Combustion Characteristics of Fully-Modulated, Turbulent Diffusion Flames in Reduced Gravity"
 
Michigan
Professor Indrek S. Wichman
Michigan State University
East Lansing, MI
"Investigation of Diffusion Flame Tip Instability in Microgravity"
 
Missouri
Professor Richard L. Axelbaum
Washington University
St. Louis, MO
"Flame Design - A Novel Approach to Clean Efficient Diffusion Flames"
 
New Jersey
Professor Chung K. Law
Princeton University
Princeton, NJ
"Structure and Response of Spherical Diffusion Flames"
 
Ohio
Dr. Vedha Nayagam
National Center for Microgravity Research
Cleveland, OH
"Dynamics of Droplet Extinction in Slow Convective Flows"
 
 
Ground-based Tasks
 
California
Professor Jyh-Yuan Chen
University of California, Berkeley
Berkeley, CA
"Numerical Study of Buoyancy and Differential Diffusion Effects on the Structure and Dynamics of Triple Flames"
 
Professor Derek Dunn-Rankin
University of California, Irvine
Irvine, CA
"Applications of Electric Field in Microgravity Combustion"
 
Professor Fokion N. Egolfopoulos
University of Southern California
Los Angeles, CA
"Quantitative Studies on the Propagation and Extinction of Near-Limit Flames Under Normal-and Micro-gravity"
 
 
Dr. Jay B. Jeffries
SRI International
Menlo Park, CA
"Quantitative Interpretation of Optical Emission Sensors for Microgravity Experiments"
 
Professor Ian M. Kennedy
University of California, Davis
Davis, CA
"The Impact of Buoyancy and Flame Structure on Soot, Radiation and NOx Emissions from a Turbulent Diffusion Flame"
 
Professor Benjamin D. Shaw
University of California, Davis
Davis, CA
"Combustion of Han-Based Monopropellant Droplets in Reduced Gravity"
 
Professor Owen I. Smith
University of California, Los Angeles
Los Angeles, CA
"Acoustically Forced, Condensed Phase Fuel Combustion Under Microgravity Conditions"
 
Professor Forman A. Williams
University of California, San Diego
La Jolla, CA
"High Pressure Combustion of Binary Fuel Sprays"
 
Colorado
Dr. John M. Alford
TDA Research, Inc.
Wheat Ridge, CO
"Formation of Carbon Nanotubes in a Microgravity Environment"
 
Professor Melvyn C. Branch
University of Colorado, Boulder
Boulder, CO
"Combustion of Metals Reduced-Gravity and Extraterrestrial Environments"
 
Professor John J. Moore
Colorado School of Mines
Golden, CO
"A Fundamental Study of the Combustion Synthesis of Ceramic-Metal Composite Materials Under Microgravity Conditions- Phase III: Effect of Gravity on the Combustion Synthesis of Advanced, Engineered, Porous Materials"
 
Connecticut
Professor Daniel E. Rosner
Yale University
New Haven, CT
"Combustion of Individual Bubbles and Submerged Gas Jets in Liquid Fuels"
 
 
Professor Mitchell D. Smooke
Yale University
New Haven, CT
"Computational and Experimental Study of Energetic Materials in a Counterflow Microgravity Environment"
 
Iowa
Professor Lea Der Chen
University of Iowa
Iowa City, IA
"Reflight of ELF (Enclosed Laminar Flames) Investigation"
 
Illinois
Professor Bernard J. Matkowsky
Northwestern University
Evanston, IL
"Filtration Combustion for Microgravity Applications (1) Smoldering, (2) Combustion Synthesis of Advanced Materials"
 
Professor Ishwar K. Puri
University of Illinois, Chicago
Chicago, IL
"Gravitational Effects on Partially-Premixed Flames"
 
Indiana
Professor Arvind Varma
University of Notre Dame
Notre Dame, IN
"Mechanistic Studies of Combustion and Structure Formation During Synthesis of Advanced Materials"
 
Massachusetts
Professor Simone Hochgreb
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Cambridge, MA
"A Study of Critical Soot Threshold in Microgravity by the Application of DC and AC Electric Fields"
 
Dr. W. Terry Rawlins
Physical Sciences Inc.
Andover, MA
"Hyperspectral Imaging of Flame Spread over Solid Fuel Surfaces Using Adaptive Fabry-Perot Filters"
 
Maryland
Dr. Linda G. Blevins
National Institute of Standards and Technology
Gaithersburg, MD
"Carbon Monoxide and Soot Formation in Inverse Diffusion Flames"
 
 
Professor Ashwani K. Gupta
University of Maryland
College Park, MD
"Studies on the Behavior of Highly Preheated Air Flames in Microgravity"
 
Dr. Anthony Hamins
National Institute of Standards and Technology
Gaithersburg, MD
"The Extinction of Low Strain Rate Diffusion Flames by an Agent in Microgravity"
 
Dr. William E. Mell
National Institute of Standards and Technology
Gaithersburg, MD
"Simulation of Combustion Systems with Realistic g-jitter"
 
Dr. George Mulholland
National Institute of Standards and Technology
Gaithersburg, MD
"Kinetics and Structure of Superagglomerates Produced by Silane and Acetylene"
 
Michigan
Professor Werner J. A. Dahm
University of Michigan
Ann Arbor, MI
"Turbulent Flame Processes via Vortex-Ring - Diffusion Flame Interaction"
 
Professor James F. Driscoll
University of Michigan
Ann Arbor, MI
"Flame Vortex Interactions in Microgravity to Assess the Theory of Flame Stretch"
 
Professor Gerard M. Faeth
University of Michigan
Ann Arbor, MI
"Flow/Soot-Formation in Nonbuoyant Laminar Diffusion Flames"
 
New Jersey
Professor Chung K. Law
Princeton University
Princeton, NJ
"Aerodynamics and Chemical Kinetics of Premixed Flames at High Pressures"
 
New Mexico
Dr. Joel A. Silver
Southwest Sciences, Inc.
Sante Fe, NM
"Quantitative Species Measurements in Microgravity Combustion Flames"
 
New York
Professor C. Thomas Avedisian
Cornell University
Ithaca, NY
"High Pressure Combustion of an Unsupported Sooting Fuel Droplet in Microgravity"
 
Professor Peyman Givi
State University of New York, Buffalo
Buffalo, NY
"Large Eddy Simulation of Gravitational Effects on Transitional and Turbulent Gas-Jet Diffusion Flames"
 
Ohio
Dr. Daniel L. Dietrich
NASA Lewis Research Center
Cleveland, OH
"Combustion of Interacting Droplet Arrays in a Microgravity Environment"
 
Dr. Paul V. Ferkul
National Center for Microgravity Research
Cleveland, OH
"Thickness Effects on Fuel Flammability"
 
Dr. Sandra L. Olson
NASA Lewis Research Center
Cleveland, OH
"Low Stretch Diffusion Flames over a Solid Fuel"
 
Dr. Kurt R. Sacksteder
NASA Lewis Research Center
Cleveland, OH
"Flame Spreading and Extinction in Partial Gravity Environments"
 
Dr. Peter Sunderland
National Center for Microgravity Research
Cleveland, OH
"Investigation of Velocity and Temperature in Microgravity Laminar Jet Diffusion Flames"
 
Dr. Fumiaki Takahashi
University of Dayton Research Institute, Dayton, OH
"Reaction Kernel Structure and Diffusion Flame Stabilization"
 
Dr. Randall L. Vander Wal
National Center for Microgravity Research
Cleveland, OH
"The Synthesis of Graphite Encapsulated Metal Nanoparticles and Metal Catalytic Nanotubes"
 
Texas
Professor Noel T. Clemens
University of Texas, Austin
Austin, TX
"Investigation of Strain/Vorticity and Large-Scale Flow Structure in Turbulent Nonpremixed Jet Flames"
 
Professor Philip Varghese
University of Texas, Austin
Austin, TX
"Laser Velocimeter for Studies of Microgravity Combustion Flowfields"
 
Wisconsin
Dr. Eric E. Rice
Orbital Technologies Corporation
Madison, WI
"Development of Methods for Producing and Utilizing Alternate Fuel/Oxidizer Combinations Associated with Mars to Support ISRU-Based Propulsion and Power Systems"