Course Descriptions

Morning Sessions (please select one of the following two courses)

Combustion Chemistry

Lecturer: Philippe Dagaut, CNRS Orléans, France

Course Content: The course offers an introduction to the development of detailed chemical kinetic mechanisms for the description of the oxidation of hydrocarbons, commercial fuels, and renewable fuels, including biofuels and ammonia. It presents experimental techniques for model assessment, thermodynamics, and kinetics. Additionally, it discusses the importance of good experimental data used as validation targets. The course delves more deeply into reaction mechanisms involved in the oxidation of hydrogen to commercial and synthetic fuels, autoignition chemistry, the formation and reduction of pollutants, and combustion control.

Short Bio: P. Dagaut completed his Ph.D. in 1986 and is currently a Research Director at CNRS in Orleans, France, where he works on the chemical kinetics of fuels oxidation. He is a Past-President of the Combustion Institute and has been Editor of Combustion and Flame and of the Proceedings of the Combustion Institute. He has authored over 360 peer-reviewed papers, with a h-index of 77 (Scopus). His accolades include the 2016 A. Egerton Gold Medal from the Combustion Institute, the 2016 CNRS Silver Medal, and the 2023 International Prize from the Combustion Society of Japan.

Turbulent Combustion

Lecturer: Hong G. Im, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), Saudi Arabia

Course Content: This course offers an overview of the fundamental physics of turbulent reacting flows encountered in many engineering applications, followed by modern computational modeling approaches to predict the physical and chemical characteristics. The course starts with a review of the conservation equations in computational aspects, followed by the mathematical theory of laminar flames and statistical description of turbulence. Subsequently, phenomenological observations and scaling laws pertaining to turbulent combustion characteristics in different regimes are discussed. More in-depth coverage of mathematical modeling framework will then be covered in premixed, nonpremixed, and partially premixed combustion systems. Finally, recent advances in data-based reduced order models for turbulent combustion simulations are reviewed.

Short Bio: Hong G. Im received his B.S. and M.S. in from Seoul National University, and Ph.D. from Princeton University. After postdoctoral researcher appointments at the Center for Turbulence Research, Stanford University, and at the Combustion Research Facility, Sandia National Laboratories, he held assistant/associate/full professor positions at the University of Michigan. He joined KAUST in 2013 as a Professor in Mechanical Engineering, serving as Deputy Chair of Clean Energy Research Platform. He is a recipient of the NSF CAREER Award and SAE Ralph R. Teetor Educational Award, and has been inducted as an International Member of the National Academy of Engineering of Korea, a Fellow of the Combustion Institute and American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) and an Associate Fellow of American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA). He has also served as an Associate Editor for the Proceedings of the Combustion Institute, and currently on the Editorial Board for Energy and AI. Professor Im’s research and teaching interests are primarily fundamental and practical aspects of combustion and power generation devices using high-fidelity computational modeling. Current research activities include direct numerical simulation of turbulent combustion at extreme conditions, large eddy simulations of turbulent flames at high pressure, combustion of hydrogen and e-fuels, spray and combustion modeling in advanced internal combustion engines, advanced models for pollutant formation, plasma-assisted combustion, and data-based reduced order models.

Afternoon Sessions (please select one of the following three courses)

Dynamics of Flames and Detonations in Premixed Gas

Lecturer: Paul Clavin, Aix-Marseille Université, France

Course Content: The course provides an overview of the fundamentals of the dynamics of shock waves, flames in premixed gas and detonations. A large variety of phenomena will be covered including ignition, quenching, cellular fronts, thermo-acoustic instabilities, direct and spontaneous initiation of detonations as well as recent advances in the understanding of the deflagration to detonation transition. Both experiments and theoretical analyses will be presented.

Short Bio：Paul Clavin is Professor Emeritus at Aix-Marseille Université and is an honorary member of the Institut Universitaire de France (Chair « Mécanique Physique » 1993-2004). He is a specialist of the theory of the nonlinear dynamics and cellular structure of combustion waves (flames and detonations) and fronts in flows (gaseous shocks, ablation fronts in inertial confinement fusion,..). He wrote a book on these topics with Geoff Searby (Cambridge University Press 2016). He received major awards from the Société Française de Physique (Prix Ancel 1984 and Plumey 1988), French Academy of Sciences (Grand Prix 1995) and from international institutions (Zeldovich Gold Medal of the Combustion Institute 2014, Lagrange Award of the Nonlinear Science Joint Meeting 2021). In 1995 he founded a renowned multidisciplinary research institute on Irreversible Processes (IRPHE, CNRS / Université d’Aix-Marseille). He was the scientific director of various research programs in propulsion (Arianerocket CNRS /CNES / SEP1988-1993), inertial confinement fusion (CEA-DIF/ CNRS 2003-2008)… His recent theoretical analyses (2023-2025) concern the Deflagration-to Detonation Transition.

Advanced Laser Diagnostics for Chemically Reacting Flows

Lecturer: Mark Linne, The University of Edinburgh, UK

Course Content: This course combines both fundamental topics and applications for laser diagnostics in chemically reacting flows. Fundamental topics include: the equation of radiative transfer (including rate equations, absorption, emission, saturation, etc.), physical optics (wave equation, the Lorentz atom, light scattering, etc.), an introduction to quantum mechanics and how it enters into diagnostic expressions, basic atomic and molecular spectroscopy including example details on the OH molecule, statistical thermodynamics, development of resonance expressions (Einstein coefficients, absorption cross-sections, etc.), and the origins of spectral line shapes. The intention is to show students the level of detail required to perform high-fidelity measurements. These topics will be woven into more applied presentations on: how lasers work, particle image velocimetry and other forms of velocimetry (including optical flow), fuel spray diagnostics (SLIPI, 2-photon PLIF, & ballistic imaging), absorption-based techniques (line-of-sight, wavelength modulation, cavity-enhanced, and frequency combs), laser induced fluorescence, Raman scattering, and coherent anti-Stokes Raman scattering (especially the new picosecond/femtosecond varieties).

Short Bio：Emeritus Professor Linne earned a PhD in Mechanical Engineering at Stanford University in 1985, where he studied post-flame chemical kinetics, including the development of fiberoptic laser absorption and fluorescence probes for OH. He was one of Prof. Ron Hanson’s very first PhD students. After leaving Stanford, he worked as a laser development scientist at Spectra-Physics Inc. where he developed the first commercially available q-switched diode-pumped solid state lasers. Prof. Linne has served as a faculty member at the Colorado School of Mines (USA), Combustion Physics at Lund’s University (Sweden), Applied Mechanics at Chalmers University (Sweden), and in the School of Engineering at the University of Edinburgh (UK). Linne also managed the Department of Combustion Chemistry at the Combustion Research Facility, Sandia National Labs. He has worked on and applied many laser and x-ray diagnostic techniques for sprays and chemically reacting flow-fields (mostly flames and solid-oxide fuel cells). He is a Fellow of Optica (formerly the Optical Society of America) and the Combustion Institute. Linne was elected chair of the 2015 Gordon Research Conference on laser Diagnostics in Combustion, and he has recently published the second edition of his book “Spectroscopic Measurement: an Introduction to the Fundamentals”.

Applications of Combustion Science to Fire Safety

Lecturer: José L. Torero, University College London, UK

Course Content: The fire safety of our built environment, productive activities, urban wildland interface and forests is underpinned by the combustion processes controlling fires. Fire is a combustion phenomenon that evolves in space and time that has the potential to negatively affect people and property. Fire safety is our capacity to affect this combustion phenomenon in a manner that damage can be controlled to levels acceptable to society. Like other combustion processes, fire is controlled by complex chemical kinetics occurring in degrading fuels (pyrolysis) and in the gas phase (combustion), is determined by turbulent transport covering a wide range of turbulent intensities and results in complex heat exchange processes. These processes are strongly coupled and cover time scales from the nano-second to hours and length scales from the micro-metre to kilometres. Through this course, different processes will be explored in the context of uniquely complex fire safety applications (underground fires, fires originating in novel energy storage devices, combustible structures, etc.). Case studies will be presented where the combustion principles behind fires will be used to explain the phenomena and to address the methodologies and technologies commonly used to mitigate the destructive capability of the fire.

Short Bio：Professor José L. Torero is Professor Civil Engineering and Head of the Department of Civil, Environmental and Geomatic Engineering at University College London. He works in the fields of fire safety, combustion, environmental remediation and sanitation where he specializes in complex environments such as developing nations, complex urban environments, novel architectures, critical infrastructure, aircraft and spacecraft. He holds a BSc for the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú (1989), and an MSc (1991) and PhD (1992) from the University of California, Berkeley. He received a Doctor Honoris Causaby Ghent University (Belgium) in 2016. José is a Chartered Engineer (UK), a Registered Professional Engineer in Queensland, a fellow of the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering, the Royal Academy of Engineering (UK), the Royal Society of Edinburgh (UK), the Queensland Academy of Arts and Sciences (Australia), the Institution of Civil Engineers (UK), the Institution of Fire Engineers (UK), the Society of Fire Protection Engineers (USA), the Combustion Institute (USA) and the Royal Society of New South Wales (Australia). José joined UCL following appointments as Professor of Civil Engineering and Head of the School of Civil Engineering at the University of Queensland, Australia, the Landolt & Cia Chair in Innovation for a Sustainable Future at Ecole Polytechnique Fédéral de Lausanne, BRE Trust/RAEng Professor of Fire Safety Engineering at The University of Edinburgh, Associate Professor at the University of Maryland and Charge de Recherche at the French National Centre for Scientific Research. He has been involved in landmark designs such as the tallest timber office building in the world, the Space Shuttle hangars in Cape Canaveral or the 2011 temple for “Burning Man.” He has been part of the World Trade Center collapse investigation, the Organization of American States Human Rights investigation of Ayotzinapa, Mexico, the Chilean investigation of the San Miguel prison fire and currently, he is serving in the Grenfell Public Inquiry. His work on the reformulation of engineering education led to six influential think tanks supported by the Lloyd’s Register Foundation and the Ove Arup Foundation.