1. Jonas Trevino Tom C. Clark HS Northside ISD Mechanical Engineering Dr. Eric Petersen William Lowry

2. Texas A&M Petersen Research Group Department of Mechanical Engineering Turbomachinery Lab Dr. Eric Petersen Stanford University, Ph.D. ME 1998 University of Florida, M.S. ME 1990 University of Central Florida, B.S. ME 1988 William Lowry M.S. Candidate, 2008 – present B.S., Mechanical Engineering, Texas A&M University, 2008

3. Flame Speed in Combustion Experiments *Need for understanding of combustion phenomena for use in the gas turbine industry Real World Applications *Help with diagnosis / fixing problems with industrial gas turbines *Help development of testing new fuels so they work efficiently, safely, and within limits *Help validate chemistry models of combustion

4. Research Objectives **Gain better understanding of Combustion Phenomena through better mathematical modeling **To help understand problems including Auto Ignition Blowoff Flashback Dynamic Instability **To test a variety of Fuel / Air blends and Pressures in order to better model Combustion and Flame Speeds

5. Flame Speed **Laminar Flame Speed : Important Combustion parameter, the speed of a flame as it propagates through a fuel/air mixture **Research will Calculate unburned and unstretched flame speed Burned Products Premixed Fuel and Oxidizer Flame Front Moving Through VesselContainment Vessel

6. Experiment Setup **Fuel is mixed with oxygen and other “filler” gases (in predetermined proportions using the partial pressures method) into a Vessel that will contain the explosion

7. Experiment Setup **Combustion is contained in the Vessel, which is inside a room with concrete filled, steel reinforced blast walls

8. Experiment Setup ** Actual explosion and subsequent flame are captured by a high speed camera, which captures the image with the help of parabolic mirrors and light focused from a lamp using a Z-Type Schlieren Setup Hg Lamp Focusing Lens Aperture Parabolic Mirror Circular Knife Edge Camera Parabolic Mirror

9. Experiment Video **Low Pressure Test

10. ..\Facility Presentation\Run_256.mpg Experiment Video **High Pressure Test

11. Data Collection **The Flame Speed is calculated by using a Linear Regression of the expansion of the Radius of the Flame Sphere as a function of time. **The Radius is measured in each frame and recorded with the time interval between the frames noted.

12. Data Collection **For most fuel/air mixtures, the Regression is not always Linear, points of data fall off the line of regression as time increases or the error is skewed towards one side of the equation

13. Data Analysis **Although Linear Models have worked well for the fuel/air mixtures/pressures that have been researched, Non-Linear Methods will need to be developed in order to achieve better Models that can accommodate various fuel/air mixtures.

14. Continuing Experiments and Work **I will continue to understand how to run the experiment and analyze the data **Work on developing an algorithm for modeling a 2 nd order curve **Apply the new model to data **Perform capstone experiments to validate algorithm

15. Summary **Research on Combustion and Flame Speed is necessary to help understand Combustion Phenomena and to better model Fuels and their role in the Combustion **Make Industry safer with a better understanding and modeling of Combustion and Flame Speed **The “Bomb” research Vessel provides a safe and efficient environment to conduct research and gather data. **Data will need further analysis using Non-Linear Regression Techniques

16. Classroom Lesson Ideas **Present the Data modeling analysis in a lesson. Linear and Non-Linear **Use actual data from experiment **Have students model the data on a graph and discuss the pros/cons of different functions that could be the best fit **Have students come up with their best fit curves **Explore more data and have students use their methods to analyze and predict possible outcomes

17. Acknowledgements **Graduate Student Will Lowry **Graduate Student Kevin Kreitz **Dr. Eric Petersen **E3 program at Texas A&M University