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Multi-disciplinary Research at Work: Combustion Exascale Co-Design Center Established
Post, March 21, 2012 • Combustion research has never been timelier; in an era when resources are limited, energy costs are rising, and environmental concerns demand consideration, top researchers must find new ways to maximize efficiency while minimizing costs. Combustion accounts for roughly 85% of the total energy used in the U.S.--developing technologies to improve...
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Negative Valve Overlap: A Key to Controlling Lean, Gasoline Auto-Ignition?
Post, October 21, 2013 • By Richard Steeper The drive for cleaner, more efficient engines has pushed research toward low-temperature gasoline combustion (LTGC) strategies that offer hope of achieving mandates for ultra-low engine-out emissions. Such strategies typically exploit auto-ignition to avoid the high-temperature flames associated with spark ignition. However, this approach makes LTGC control a...
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New Conceptual Insights into Diesel Engine Fuel-Injection Processes
Post, March 12, 2014 • By Joe Oefelein By combining advanced theory and high-fidelity large eddy simulation, CRF researchers Rainer Dahms and Joe Oefelein have provided new conceptual insights that promise to improve the understanding and prediction of fuel-injection processes at high-pressure diesel engine conditions. Their results, which were corroborated by experiments performed by CRF...
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New Diagnostic Capability Provides 3-D Measurements of Turbulent Flame Dynamics Using High-Repetition Rate Tomographic Particle Image Velocimetry
Post, July 24, 2014 • Capturing turbulence–flame interaction structure and studying time–history effects requires high-speed volumetric measurements performed at repetition rates sufficiently fast to resolve the relevant flow time scales. Advances in the CRF’s imaging diagnostic capabilities are overcoming these challenges to provide a more complete picture of the structure and dynamics of turbulence–flame interactions....
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New hydrogen book illustrates Sandia expertise in H2 storage
Post, March 7, 2013 • Though Hydrogen Storage Technology – Materials and Applications is perhaps a title only a scientist or engineer could love, Lennie Klebanoff is confident that the book’s content will help give readers a greater sense of urgency about the need to get hydrogen fuel cell vehicles on the road, and other...

New Methods Allow Prediction of Pressure Dependence in Chemical Reactions
Post, December 20, 2013 • Seeking to free researchers from a nearly exclusive dependence on empirical models, CRF researcher Ahren Jasper and Argonne National Laboratory researchers James A. Miller and Stephen J. Klippenstein have developed a set of theoretical methods for predicting the rates of collisional energy transfer that govern pressure dependence.1 Enabled by both...
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New Polarized-Depolarized Measurement Capability Extends Use of Raman/Rayleigh Methods to More Flame Types
Post, February 26, 2014 • By Robert Barlow Allowing single-shot measurements of all major species in nonsooting flames of simple fuels, such as H2 and CH4, spontaneous Raman scattering has been a key CRF laser diagnostic technique for fundamental turbulent-combustion studies. However, laser-induced fluorescence from soot precursors tends to interfere significantly with Raman scattering signals—limiting...
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New Take on an Old Laser Diagnostic Opens Up Additional Avenues for Combustion Research
Post, May 29, 2013 • Coherent anti-Stokes Raman spectroscopy (CARS)—one of the most powerful gas-phase spectroscopic techniques—has been widely used and refined over the last 40 years in many fields of chemical physics, from chemical sensing and standoff detection of biowarfare agents to measuring molecular dynamics. CARS has also been applied to numerous combustion research...
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Nils Hansen Receives Wilhelm Jost Memorial Medal
Post, June 24, 2024 • Nils Hansen, a physical chemist, has been chosen to receive the Wilhelm Jost Memorial Medal and deliver the Jost memorial lectures, awarded by the Göttingen Academy of Sciences and Humanities with guidance from the German Bunsen Society for Physical Chemistry. This award is given to an internationally acclaimed physical chemist...
Nils Hansen, a physical chemist, working

Novel Spectroscopic Method Reveals Intermediates over a Broad Spectrum
Post, December 2, 2013 • CRF researcher Leonid Sheps has developed a new spectroscopic method, Time-Resolved Broadband Cavity-Enhanced Absorption Spectroscopy (TR-BB-CEAS). The new technique is capable of following the time evolution of transient intermediates as they are produced and consumed in a gas-phase chemical reaction by monitoring their absorption of near-UV to visible light (300–700...
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Of blackboards and computer screens: scientific programming in the 21st century
Post, May 17, 2011 • Since he was a college student, Damian Rouson has been fascinated by the intersection of science and computing. Computers have transformed scientific research, yet the fields still exist on separate planes. He takes on the challenge of rendering computer languages, so vital to scientific advancements, more expressive and easier to...

Optimizing Engines for Alternative Fuels
Post, August 9, 2013 • by Magnus Sjöberg Given their potential to address issues related to limited petroleum reserves and accelerating global climate change, renewable fuels and improved engine efficiency are receiving significant research attention. Specifically, researchers are exploring the challenges of developing engines that can operate efficiently on alternative fuels, while offering high performance...
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Outstanding Technology: Ducted Fuel Injection
Post, March 9, 2021 • Sandia researchers won an Outstanding Technology Development Award for its work on ducted fuel injection (DFI), a patented technology that slashes emissions of soot and nitrogen oxides from diesel engines by about 80% and is synergistic with sus­tainable liquid fuels like biodiesel. According to Chuck Mueller, who leads the project,...

Paul Miles Appointed Manager of Engine Combustion Department
Post, July 8, 2014 • Paul Miles On June 6, Paul Miles became manager of the CRF’s Engine Combustion Department, which focuses on building the science base needed by industry to develop new generations of high-efficiency, clean engines. He took over the helm from departing manager Dennis Siebers, who recently retired from Sandia National Laboratories....

Pennsylvania Congressman Chaka Fattah visits CRF
Post, August 9, 2013 • On July 15, Congressman Chaka Fattah (PA-2nd) visited the Combustion Research Facility. He met with Transportation Energy Center Director Bob Carling and Deputy Director of Chemical Sciences Dawn Manley to learn about research programs at the CRF and visited Mark Musculus’ optical engine lab. Congressman Fattah serves on the Appropriations...
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Portable Hydrogen Fuel Cell Unit to Provide Green, Sustainable Power to Honolulu Port
Post, April 3, 2014 • Clean hydrogen power that’s expected to lower emissions and reduce energy consumption will be coming to the Port of Honolulu in 2015 after the completion of a new fuel cell technology demonstration, one that could lead to a commercial technology for ports worldwide. A new fuel cell demonstration project led...
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Postdoctoral Researcher Oliver Welz Moves on to Next Challenge
Post, April 15, 2014 • Oliver Welz Oliver Welz, a postdoctoral researcher in the CRF’s Combustion Chemistry group since 2010, will soon be taking on a new challenge as head of a research group in chemical kinetics at the University of Duisburg-Essen in Germany. In this position, the first step to becoming a full professor...

Reaching out to the community: The CRF hosts Industry Day
Post, March 21, 2012 • One of the key aspects of the CRF’s mission is to encourage collaborations between our researchers and the academic and corporate communities, especially to help our partners develop Sandia-based technologies into commercial products that bring value to the larger public. Recently, the CRF recently hosted its first ‘Industry Day,’ an...
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Remembering Kevin Strecker
Post, December 12, 2012 • Kevin Strecker CRF researcher Kevin Strecker was a brilliant physicist with a child’s enthusiasm and curiosity for science, a giving mentor, and a person who cared deeply for others. On Nov. 4, he died of a heart attack at the age of 38. He is survived by his wife of...

Robert Kolasinski wins DOE Early Career Award
Post, May 10, 2016 • By Michael Padilla Robert Kolasinski (8366) has received a $2.5 million, five-year Early Career Research Program award from the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Science to support his work on how intense fusion plasmas interact with the interior surfaces of fusion reactors. Robert’s research will develop the scientific foundations...
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SAE International Honors CRF Researchers for Outstanding Presentations
Post, July 25, 2014 • Joseph Oefelein Solid technical work is great—but the ability to communicate effectively about that work is equally critical. To acknowledge the importance of good communication—and maintain a high quality of presentation at its technical meeting—SAE International established the SAE Excellence in Oral Presentation award in 1972. This year, two Sandians,...
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Sandia analysis of tradeoffs across light-duty vehicle fleet power trains, fuels, and energy sources appears in the journal Energy Policy
Post, August 14, 2012 • Sandia researchers conducted a parametric analysis to examine the supply demand interactions between the US light-duty vehicle (LDV) fleet, its fuels, and the corresponding primary energy sources through 2050. The analysis emphasizes competition between conventional internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles, including hybrids, and electric vehicles (EVs), represented by both plug-in...

Sandia and Cool Earth Solar Announce Partnership
Post, March 7, 2013 • Under the bright California sun on Wednesday, Feb. 20, Sandia and Cool Earth Solar celebrated the announcement of a 5-year Cooperative Research and Development Agreement, the first public-private partnership to take full advantage of the Livermore Valley Open Campus (LVOC). “Today’s announcement perfectly embodies how the open campus will enable...
Results 101–125 of 165