Princeton's Combustion Energy Frontier Research Center's Summer School in Combustion is an intensive one-week seminar series held annually at Princeton University, during which advanced graduate students and researchers in combustion and energy will take two courses of 15 hours each. The participants are outstanding senior graduate students sent by their respective supervisors, from all across the country, as well as faculty members and research staff from government and industrial labs. These participants hold strong potential to be leaders in the combustion and energy R&D community. Scholarships are available to students enrolled in U.S. academic institutions to cover local expenses. The 2010 session drew in more than 120 participants. Videos of the 2010 lectures by Professor Norbert Peters on Combustion Theory, and by Drs. Stephen J. Klippenstein and Charles K. Westbrook on Combustion Chemistry are available at iTunes University and the Princeton University website at: http://deimos.apple.com/WebObjects/Core.woa/Browse/princeton.edu.4746982603.04746982605 and www.princeton.edu/engineering/video/combustion-2010/ respectively.
The 2011 session is scheduled to be held on June 26 to July 1. This year the number of applicants has surpassed last year?s and we have thus far admitted 133 with a growing waiting list, which we intend to accommodate. We shall continue to offer the two foundation courses of Combustion Theory and Combustion Chemistry, but have commissioned alternate lecturers so that returning students can get a different perspective of the same topics. Furthermore, we have added a third course, on Combustion Laser Diagnostics. The lecturers are Professor Moshe Matalon from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign on Combustion Theory, Professor Michael J. Pilling from the University of Leeds, UK on Combustion Chemistry, and Professor Marcus Aldén from Lund University, Sweden on Combustion Laser Diagnostics. The week-long lecture series will again be professionally videotaped and made available to the public. Lecture notes and course materials will be prepared and distributed to the participants for advanced reading before commencement of the Summer School. More information on the Summer School is available at: www.princeton.edu/cefrc/combustionsummer-school/.
Objective The Princeton-CEFRC Summer School on Combustion is part of the outreach program of the Combustion Energy Frontier Research Center (CEFRC), which is one of the Energy Frontier Research Centers (EFRCs) established by DOE in 2009. The goal of the Center is to develop a validated, predictive, multi-scale, combustion modeling capability to optimize the design and operation of evolving fuels, especially biofuels, in advanced engines for transportation applications. The Summer School program was conceived by recognizing that while combustion is an interdisciplinary subject, due to limitations at individual institutions the training received by most combustion researchers has not been sufficiently comprehensive to equip them to make breakthrough discoveries. The Summer School therefore aims to offer advanced graduate level courses to remedy this deficiency. Approach The 2011 session was held from June 26 through July 1. Participants comprised of senior graduate students and professionals from academia, industries and government labs. World-renowned researchers were commissioned to deliver the lectures. Three 15-hour lectures offered over 5 days, with 3 hours in the morning and 3 hours in the afternoon. The three courses and their respective lecturers were: Combustion Theory: Moshe Matalon of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Combustion Chemistry: Michael Pilling of the University of Leeds, UK Combustion Laser Diagnostics: Marcus Alden of the Lund University, Sweden Detailed lecture notes were prepared and distributed to the participants beforehand. Participants lived in comfortable dormitory setting, and had meals together in the student cafeteria, hence facilitating networking. Room and board for all US students were covered by the Center. Relevance to NSF The primary mission of the NSF is to generate new scientific knowledge and to educate the general public. The present program meets the second goal by enriching the knowledge of graduate students and professionals in combustion. Furthermore, it is anticipated that many of the graduate students will become active researchers in combustion and propulsion in the future, some assuming leadership positions. This Summer School experience will undoubtedly prove useful as they carry out their responsibilities. Accomplishments for Reporting Period 140 participants from 52 institutions in 25 states of the union. Participants were highly satisfied with the experience, with many laudatory feedback comments. All lectures were professional taped and are freely available to the general public through the Princeton University web-site as iTunes. Detailed lecture notes are freely available to the general public through Princeton University’s web-site.
