University of Southern California
The two-day workshop (July31 - August 1, 2014) will be held at the Stanford University campus with experts from around the country to address the research needs for basic combustion and reacting flows. The proposed Workshop is a "grass roots" activity that is intentionally not affiliated with or sponsored by any institution other than NSF, so that the Grand Challenges will be chosen independent of whether the research required to address these Challenges is within the interests of any particular organization or funding agency, thus preserving the fundamental nature of the issues and research needs that will be identified. The participants will be selected from the combustion research community and the target audience for the outcomes of the Workshop is the combustion research community itself.
A workshop entitled, "Grand Challenges in Combustion and Reacting Flows" was held at Stanford University on July 31 – August 1, 2014. The scope of the Workshop was energy conversion, that is, starting with chemical energy in the form of fuels (e.g. hydrocarbons, alcohols, hydrogen) or fuel carriers (e.g. borohydrides for storing hydrogen), how can one more effectively (in terms of energy density, power density, range, emissions, safety, etc.) obtain electrical, shaft or kinetic (propulsive) power, new materials or processing techniques, etc. The Workshop was intentionally a "grass roots" activity that was intentionally not affiliated with or sponsored by any institution other than NSF. This Workshop brought together a diverse set of leaders in the field of combustion and reacting flows together for the purpose of generating and debating ideas. The participants were selected from the combustion research community and the target audience for the outcomes of the Workshop was the combustion research community itself, particularly younger members of the community beginning their careers. 26 researchers participated in this workshop, leading to identification of 10 specific, concrete, challenging yet actionable goals for researchers in the field: Develop more efficient engines by reducing heat loss Fabricate nanostructured devices using combustion Develop cyber-connected combustion using Big Data Analytics Integrate energy conversion and CO2 capture Eliminate thermoacoustic instabilities Control reaction pathways Create fuel-based sub-kW power systems Predict and mitigate wildland fires in real time Enable fuel, product and operational flexibility Incorporate nonequilibrium effects in the prediction of explosions A manuscript to be submitted for publication in an archival journal is in preparation. It is anticipated that these Challenges will encourage and foster further applied research in these topical areas.
