Experiments were carried out to determine the effectiveness of a transient plasma, i.e, corona discharge, to initiate a detonation in a short tube. A high-voltage pulse generator used a pseudo-spark switch to discharge a capacitor through a transformer connected to electrodes in the combustion initiator section. The resulting voltage pulse (90 kV for 50 ns) produced a plasma discharge consistin...

Ethnomethodology is an established method of research in technology related fields. In work settings, ethnomethodology has helped researchers to deepen their understanding of how collaborative activities unfold in a social context. While much collaboration is now carried out online, through distributed teams for example, ethnomethodology, as a method of analysis, has not received considerable i...

A flashlamp-pumped dye laser was modified to produce 80mJ/pulse, narrowband output at 532 nm suitable for pumping of Raman active transitions of the major combustion species CO2, H2O, N2, and O2. Simultaneous measurements of multiple species were obtained in atmospheric pressure methane-air flames, demonstrating absolutely quantitative measurements of species mole-fraction. Comparisons with Q-s...

The engine and its exhaust flow behaviors are investigated in a turbo-charged gasoline direct injection engine under simulated cold-fast-idle condition. The metrics of interest are the exhaust sensible and chemical enthalpy flows, and the exhaust temperature, all of which affect catalyst light off time. The exhaust sensible enthalpy flow is mainly a function of combustion phasing; the exhaust c...

Heat transfer is of crucial importance to understand the conversion kinetics and the behavior during combustion of fuels such as plastics particles. In this work, the heat transfer onto single plastic resin particles (5x7 mm) by flames and a pulsed laser was studied by recording time resolved series of images with a high speed CCD (charge coupled device) camera. Images in the visible spectrum w...

A multi-pulse injection strategy for premixed charge compression ignition (PCCI) combustion was investigated in a four-valve, direct-injection diesel engine by a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulation using KIVA-3V code coupled with detailed chemistry. The effects of fuel splitting proportion, injection timing, spray angles, and injection velocity were examined. The mixing process and fo...

This thesis addresses the problem of combustion control for automotive engines. A method is proposed to complement existing controllers, which use lookup tables based on steady-state operation. During transients, the new control method adjusts fast control variables (ignition or injection time) to compensate for deviations in the cylinder initial conditions from their optimal values due to the ...

This thesis addresses the problem of combustion control for automotive engines. A method is proposed to complement existing controllers, which use lookup tables based on steady-state operation. During transients, the new control method adjusts fast control variables (ignition or injection time) to compensate for deviations in the cylinder initial conditions from their optimal values due to the ...