Associate Professor Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering, University of Central Florida
Dr. Vasu is an associate professor at the University of Central Florida (Orlando, FL) and is affiliated with the Center for Advanced Turbomachinery and Energy Research (CATER). Dr. Vasu has significant research interests are in sCO2 combustion chemistry and modeling for direct-fired systems, experimental rigs for sCO2 fluid property evaluation, laser diagnostics and sensors for sCO2 flows, and laser spectroscopy. He is the author of more than 100 journals (including more than 25 journal articles in the field of direct-fired sCO2 combustion) and more than 200 conference articles. He is also a reviewer for numerous journals, session chair for conferences, and has reviewed proposals for federal/private agencies. He has won several national and international awards given to early-career academic researchers. He is the recipient of the 2017 American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) and International Gas Turbine Institute’s Dilip Ballal Early Career Award, DARPA Young Faculty Award 2018, DARPA Director’s Fellowship 2021, and the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE)’s 2018 Ralph R Teetor Educational Award.
Recent progress in the fundamentals of direct-fired sCO2 combustion
This talk will present fundamentals and review of recent efforts in the development and validation of a combustion chemical kinetic mechanism for sCO2 oxy-methane/natural gas combustion that can be used for computational fluid dynamic code (CFD) simulations in sCO2 oxy-combustion development. Typical gas-phase combustion models for fuels (methane, natural gas, etc.) have been validated for gas turbine conditions – pressures below 40 atm and in fuel/air combustion- and cannot be extended to the operating conditions of sCO2 combustors. Recent models are created by incorporating real gas and solvent effects on the combustion process using quantum chemical and molecular dynamic investigations. Validation is carried out using unique experiments conducted in CO2 diluted methane/natural gas mixtures and for pressures up to 300 bar. Acquiring experimental data is critical in the development of a sCO2 detailed kinetic mechanism as there was previously none available for methane at very high pressures near 300 bar (for Allam cycle) and for CO2 diluted methane mixtures even at normal pressures. Simulations with reactor network modeling for the design of combustors for the industry will be discussed.