Facilities & Equipment

Laboratory & Office: 80m2 laboratory, 25m2 office, 30m2 storage, parking & delivery reception, 70 kVA 3-phase power, 10GbE/SFP+ network, laboratory compressor, spray extraction, 6 x optical diagnostics workstations, 1 x workbench, 2 x electronics workbenches.

Lasers: 2 x Spectra Physics Quanta-Ray LAB-170 Nd:YAG lasers (1064nm, 532nm, 355nm, 266nm), 1 x Syrah Precision Scan dye laser (tunable 215nm-600nm), 1 x 20kHz, 20W New Wave Research dual cavity Nd:YLF laser, 4 x 405nm diode lasers, 1 x 526nm alignment laser.

CMOS/CCD/ICCD Detectors, Power meters: 6 x ICCD Cameras (4x Princeton Instruments, 1x PCO DiCAM PRO, 1x Hamamatsu), 1 x Photron FASTCAM SA1.1, 2 x Newport Oriel Linespec 78855, 2 x Molectron laser power meters, 4 x Laserline CW laser power meters.

Spectrophotometers: 1 x Shimadzu UV-Vis UV-1800 absorption spectrometer, 2 x Newport Oriel 78877 linear array emission spectrometers, 1 x Spectrex PC-2200 laser particle counter/sizer.

Flow rigs: 2 x recirculating flow rigs (1 x 200-1700bar, 1 x 100-630bar upstream, 1-20bar downstream)), 1 x low pressure flow rig (5-100 bar upstream, 1-20 bar downstream), 1 x customized common rail Diesel fuel injection system (variable timing/multiple injections, 100-750bar accumulator pressure). All rigs are capable of supporting conventional and optically accessible injectors for flow visualization, spray characterization, drop-sizing, and internal flow analysis.

Computing: 6 x HPC workstations (~ 6.5 TFLOPS DP, 1 x 16-core Ryzen 9 7950X, 2 x 16-core Ryzen 9 5950X, 1 x 16-core Ryzen 9 3950X, 1 x 12-core Ryzen 9 3900X, 1 x 24-core Intel Xeon, 5 x nVidia Geforce GPGPU units (~ 20 TFLOPS SP), connected by TB4/TB3/10Gbe), 32TB 10Gbe/SFP+ NAS Server, office printer/fax/scanner, A3+ printer, multiple office and laboratory pcs connected via 10Gbe/SFP+.

Ancilliary Equipment: Assorted uv/visible optics, DSLR cameras & optics, Arri white light sources, hot wire flow velocity meters, timing control boxes, oscilloscopes, NI DAQ/Timing control units, inclined water manometers, electronic micro-manometer, 9-channel laboratory burner fuel/air control system.

Experimental & Modelling Capabilities

Laser ignition, laser induced bubble formation, high-resolution time-resolved pump-probe spectroscopy, high-resolution time-resolved flow visualization, high-resolution Planar/3D Laser Induced Fluorescence (fluid flow markers, molecular spectroscopy), Rayleigh/Mie scattering, time-resolved laser induced incandescence for combustion particulates, UV-visible emission/absorption spectroscopy, laser particle counting/sizing in liquids, particle imaged velocimetry (PIV), external gas flow velocity measurement, fluid pressure measurement.

Detailed and reduced chemical kinetic modelling of chemically reacting fluid flows, including complex surrogate fuels for conventional/bio-/CTL/GTL gasoline, kerosene and Diesel. Detailed chemical kinetic modelling mechanisms available for aliphatic/aromatic/PAH reactions to form primary soot particles and soot particle growth.

Advanced Industry/University Short Courses & Consultancy

Short courses can be individually prepared and tailored to cover theoretical and experimental aspects of combustion research, chemical kinetic modelling, laser diagnostics in combustion and flow systems, automotive fuel injection systems, engines, gas turbines, combustion emissions, experimental methodology, statistics & data analysis, strategic design of experiments, selection of measurement diagnostics, equipment & methods, laser safety, laboratory health & safety management, and laboratory design.

Figure 1: Diesel sprays workstation. The customized Diesel fuel injection system is shown in the Foreground, together with the timing and injection control boxes. The personal computers in the background are for high speed video imaging, data acquisition and timing control.
Figure 2: High-pressure recirculation flow rig connected to optically accessible model Diesel injector return valve.
Figure 3: Hydrodynamic luminescence being emitted from the Diesel fuel flowing though the model return valve assembly is focussed onto a Newport Oriel 78877 spectrograph.
Figure 4: Optically accessible model Diesel pressure control valve that is employed to investigate/characterize the fuel flow occurring in the different elements of the control valve.
Figure 5: 630bar recirculation flow rig.
Figure 6: Spectra Physics Quanta Ray LAB-170 Nd:YAG lasers and Syrah Precision Scan dye laser.
Figure 7: Shimadzu UV-1800 UV-Visible absorption spectrometer, and Spectrex PC-2200 laser particle counter/sizer, together with personal computer controller.