Education
•B.S., Mechanical Engineering, Tsinghua University
•M.S., Mechanical Engineering, Tsinghua University
•Ph.D., Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Princeton University
Research Areas
Combustion and Propulsion, Energy, Alternative and Surrogate Fuels, Fire Safety, Flame Dynamics, Chemical Kinetics and Mechanism Reduction, Adaptive Simulation of Multi-scale Reactive Flow
Research Profile
Environmental regulations and energy diversity produce an urgent need to develop and utilization alternative clean fuels. Alternative fuels include bio-derived fuels, such as ethanol and bio-diesel, and new fossil fuel sources, such as oil sands and oil shale. A successful design of reliable and efficient engines operating on high content bio-derived fuels or new fossil fuels strongly depends on knowledge of the combustion properties of these fuels. For example, ultra-lean premixed hydrocarbon combustion (LPC) is currently one of the most promising concepts for substantial reduction of emissions while maintaining high efficiency. This mode of combustion is operated with excess air to reduce the flame temperature to levels that virtually eliminate NOx production. However, operating at the lean flammability limit poses significant challenges with flame stability, noise, and system dynamic responses. Minor fluctuations in the fuel/air ratio, for example, can lead to flame blowout, combustion instabilities, auto-ignition and flashback, all of which strongly depends on fuel types. For our future research, the understanding of fundamental combustion properties of different alternative fuels will be a priority. Counter-flow flame and spherical flame experiments on alternative fuels will be conducted to study the flame ignition/extinction and propagation/instability, respectively. Other problems such as soot formation, flame radiation and turbulence interaction, and chemical mechanism development will be also been investigated. In addition, accompanied high fidelity multiscale modeling will be conducted to analyze/explain the experimental observations.
Professional Honors and Awards
•Chinese Government Award for Outstanding Self-financed Students Abroad, China Scholarship Council, 2009.
•Bernard Lewis Fellowship, International Combustion Institute, 2008.
•Wu Prize for Excellence, Princeton University, 2007.
Professional Activities
•International Combustion Institute, member
•American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA), member
Selected Recent Publications