Propulsion, Turbomachinary and Combustion

The Combustion and Turbomachinery research group at IIT Kharagpur explores a diverse range of topics with a variety of approaches. Specific areas of research include single droplet and spray combustion of alternative fuels, laser diagnostics of combustion process (characterization of a laser induced spark and its efficacy in the ignition of combustible mixture and on wave drag reduction), combustion of solid fuels and propellant (for rocket applications), single and multiphase fluid dynamics, chemically reacting flows, design and performance augmentation strategies for turbomachines, experimental and computational studies of turbomachines.
A new experimental facility on laser ignition of liquid fuel spray-air mixture, combustion spectroscopy, spray combustion of liquid fuels and multi-hole probe calibration have been developed. In the numerical simulations, the ongoing efforts are to improve the spatial accuracy to fourth order of a compressible chemically reacting flow solver (developed in-house) which will be used for studies on LES of combustion.
Current research activities include: Investigation on Combustion Characteristics of n-Butanol & Butyl Butyrate for their Application as Potential Aviation Fuels, Investigation on Spray Combustion Characteristics of JP-10 Embedded with Boron Particles, Investigation on the Distribution of Absorbed Energy After a Laser Induced Breakdown in Quiescent Air, Aerodynamic design of traction rolling stock with speed potentials of 250 km/h upgradeable up to 350 km/h, Experimental Investigations on Performance of Tandem Bladed Low Speed Axial Flow Compressor, Design and development of ICING tunnel for turbomachines research.