The focus of my research is on novel cooling technologies, from theory to practical applications, in order to increase gas turbine efficiencies used for propulsion and power generation.
Increasing turbine efficiencies lead to reduced fuel usage resulting in a reduction of the carbon footprint. The heart of our research lies in sustainable propulsion and power generation. An important aspect of that work is to create efficient turbines. For that to occur, sophisticated strategies are needed to cool the turbine parts because the temperatures of the gasses in the engine are already hundreds of degrees hotter than the melting temperatures of the turbine components.
The impacts of my lab’s research have been on the development of internal and external cooling features for turbine airfoils and combustor walls through detailed heat transfer, thermal field, and flow field measurements on large-scale models and actual engine hardware in a test turbine. These measurements have taken place in two laboratories I founded at the Pennsylvania State University, which have both been awarded the distinction of being Centers of Excellence in aerodynamics and heat transfer for two different gas turbine manufacturers.