Brief outline for M .Tech/DD projects

Automatic mechanism generation

The aim is to develop stand alone code to generate mechanisms for any hydrocarbon fuel. This has already been done across the world -- but the challenge is if we can build one on our own and can we do better than the exisiting ones and how. As a second part of the work, one of the earlier stand-alone codes on estimating thermochemical properties will be extended to consider cyclic alkanes. Check this out under the publications (open source codes) tab.

Simulation driven surrogate formulation

Can simulations be used to define surrogates (representative mixtures) for real fuels? We have made some progress on this along with a preliminary code development exercise. How we make this more flexible and meaningful is the challenging question.

Solver for homogeneous reactors and analysis tools

Homogenous reactor configurations are often used to validate kinetic models. The objective is to develop a stand alone in-house solver for simulating these configurations. As the second part of the work, the aim is to develop a GUI based interface to path flux analysis (through which routes does the reaction system evolve the most) commonly used in kinetic model development.

Correlations for cetane numbers of a mixture

Sooting index of a mixture can be estimated from those of its components through simple mixing rule, while such a rule for cetane numbers is not straightforward. This project involves a thorough analysis of the database for cetane numbers of hydrocarbon fuels and arriving at a possible correlation. What is more challenging is to assess if the cetane numbers of oxygenated fuels, such as long chain esters (found in bio-derived fuels) can be understood the same way?

Kinetics of butyl cyclohexane

What is the importance of side chain length of cycloakane representatives in jet fuel surrogates? We will investigate two cyclohexanes -- n-butylcyclohexane and methylcyclohexane and explore their role as real fuel surrogates. While a kinetic model is available with us for the latter, a reaction scheme for n-butyl cyclohexane has to be arrived at and integrated with an existing master kinetic model as the first task on this topic. Getting grips with kinetic model development is an important part of this project.

Kinetics of iso-alkanes

Can the effect of cycloakane representative in real fuel surrogates be imitated by iso-alkanes? The aim is to investigate the common branched alkanes, iso-octane and iso-cetane and explore their role as real fuel surrogates in place of cycloalkanes. As a first task, reaction scheme for iso-alkanes have to be arrived at and integrated with an existing master kinetic model. Getting grips with kinetic model development is an important part of this project.

Pre-requisites:

Penchant for writing stand-alone codes and interest in combustion, strong desire to pick up combustion kinetics concepts (no prior familiarity is required for kinetics)