National energy policy must address the greenhouse effect due to CO2 and the continuing threat to world peace caused partly by dependence on foreign oil. Effective use of environmentally benign alternate fuels should be on the national agenda. This PYI Award will enable Professor Gore and his group to contribute more effectively to the efforts now underway to reconcile energy needs, environmental safety and world peace. In the first two years of the PYI award, Professor Gore will concentrate on exploring the advantages of nonpremixed combustion in porous ceramic matrices, recirculating ceramic fibers and particles. Porosity, fiber thickness and strength requirements will be defined and communicated to material scientists. In the third and the fourth year, experimental and theoretical research concerning the basic flame structure and radiative transfer with directional scattering in a participating reacting medium will be undertaken. In the final year of the award, optimum fiber loading for preventing flame quenching and excessive radiation blockage in different furnace configurations will be studied. Proposals for matching support and transfer of technology to practical scales will be developed throughout the grant period. The experimental research approach will involve optical measurements of heat transfer and combustion properties using infrared imaging and multidirectional scattering spectroscopy. Theoretical approach will involve transient solutions of reacting flow and radiation properties. In addition to the development of an environmentally attractive strategic technology, the research is expected to result in much needed property data for high temperature ceramics and advance the understanding in two relatively unexplored areas: (1) highly nonadiabatic combustion, (2) radiative transport in participating media with directional scattering.
