Friday, May 15, 2009
Prof. Pope begins $1.25M collaboration with Princeton EFRC

Professor Stephen Pope, the Sibley College Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, will participate along with scientists at six other universities and institutions in the Energy Frontier Research Center for Combustion Science, directed by Chung K. Law of Princeton University. The researchers will create computer models of the combustion process, verified by experiment, in order to design novel, more efficient engines for cars and trucks, including engines using alternative fuels.

Pope's expertise is in the modeling of turbulence and its interaction with chemical reactions, and he will focus on the mixing of fuel, air and recirculated exhaust in combustion chambers. "In this center Cornell is at the end of the food chain and others will be feeding into us [with models of the chemical reactions at the atomic scale]," Pope explained. "The goal is to create better tools that can be used in engine design." Cornell's share of the institute's funding will be up to $1.25 million over five years, he said.

Text taken from this article, by Bill Steele, Cornell Chronicle.