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WELCOME

 

Overview of Research Activities

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  • Next-generation propulsion and energy systems require a detailed understanding of highly dynamic, multi-phase, reacting, and high-speed flows over a wide range of temperatures and pressures.

  • The Advanced Diagnostics and Propulsion Research Laboratory specializes in the development and application of advanced non-intrusive laser and x-ray based diagnostics to reveal the in-situ physico-chemical behavior of high-speed and reacting flows within extreme aero-thermal systems. 

  • This includes applications of advanced diagnostics to rotating detonation engines, combustion, sprays, energetics, hypersonic flows, and non-equilibrium plasmas.

 

 

Scientific Challenges

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  • Flows in rotating detonation engines, gas-turbines, rockets, internal combustion engines, scramjets, and multiphase blasts are highly complex and difficult to predict through numerical simulations. 

  • Such flows are characterized by widely varying levels of turbulence, chemical reactions, temperatures, and pressures within optically challenging environments including particulates, droplets, high pressures, and shock-wave interactions. 

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Research Needs

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  • Understanding and predicting the performance of next-generation devices requires advanced diagnostics, therefore, that can resolve a wide range of spatio-temporal scales, interrogate multiple phases, and extract quantitative information about velocity and state variables (temperature, pressure, and density) within such extreme environments.

  • Numerical post-processing tools are also needed to extract meaningful information about the dynamics of such systems from large data sets to predict their safe, clean, and efficient operation. 

Where it all Happens: Purdue University's Maurice J. Zucrow Propulsion Labs​

360 Degree Virtual Tour to learn about our:

  • History

  • Researchers

  • Research activities

  • Research culture

  • Facilities 

  • Test cells

  • Instrumentation

  • Unique capabilities

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