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Swirl combustion is one of the most efficient approach to efficient combustion processes and therefore, it has received great interest particularly from aerospace industry. Swirl combustion has been studied in the past both experimentally and computationally. However, in spite of the extended studies, the swirl combustion is still not well understood and therefore, further studies are required. One of the open questions in the swirl combustion is the effect of the swirl number on the combustion efficiency and instabilities. Over decades, extensive experimental and computational studies of swirl combustion have been performed. The experimental studies of swirl combustion are quite challenging due to the unsteady nature of the combustion process. To overcome these challenges, computational studies have been used in the study of turbulent combustion. The present study concerns the effect of the swirl number on the combustion efficiency and flame stability. The combustion efficiency is assessed based on the temperature developed inside the combustion chamber and NOx levels. The effect of air/fuel blowing ratio on the combustion efficiency and instability is also investigated in this research. The computations are carried out using the large-eddy simulation (LES) approach along with the flamelet combustion model. The analysis reveals the unsteady nature of the flame and thus, its departure from the core of the combustor. The analysis also reveals the presence of a region of high level of temperature, NO and2CO , inside the combustor 

An investigation of the performance and emissions of a Fischer-Tropsch Coal-to-Liquid (CTL) Iso-Paraffinic Kerosene (IPK) was conducted using a CRDI compression ignition research engine with ULSD as a reference. Due to the low Derived Cetane Number (DCN), of IPK, an extended Ignition Delay (ID), and Combustion Delay (CD) were found for it, through experimentation in a Constant Volume Combustion Chamber (CVCC). Neat IPK was analyzed in a research engine at 4 bar Indicated Mean Effective Pressure (IMEP) at three injection timings: 15°, 20°, and 25° BTDC. Combustion phasing (CA50) was matched with ULSD at 10.8° and 16° BTDC. The IPK DCN was found to be 26, while the ULSD DCN was significantly higher at 47 in a PAC CID 510. In the engine, IPK’s DCN combined with its short physical ignition delay and long chemical ignition delay compared to ULSD, caused extended duration in Low Temperature Heat Release (LTHR) and cool flame formation. It was found in an analysis of the Apparent Heat Release Rate (AHRR) curve for IPK that there were multiple Negative Temperature Coefficient (NTCR) regions before the main combustion event. The High Temperature Heat Release (HTHR) of IPK achieved a greater peak heat release rate compared to ULSD. Pressure rise rate for IPK was observed to increase significantly with increase in injection timing. The peak in-cylinder pressure was also greater for IPK when matching CA50 by varying injection timing. Emissions analysis revealed that IPK produced less NO_x, soot, and CO₂ compared to ULSD. CO and UHC emissions for IPK increased. 

Alternative fuels are sought after because they produce lower emissions and sometimes, they have feedstock and production advantages over fossil fuels, but their wear effects on engine components are largely unknown. In this study, the lubricity properties of a Fischer-Tropsch Gas-to-Liquid alternative fuel (Synthetic Paraffinic Kerosene-S8) and of Jet-A fuel were investigated and compared to those of Ultra Low Sulphur Diesel (ULSD). A pin-on-disk tribometer was employed to test wear and friction for a material pair of an AISI 316 steel ball on an AISI 1018 steel disk when lubricated by the fuels in this research work. Advanced digital microscopy was used to compare the wear patterns of the disks. Viscosity and density analysis of the tested fluids were also carried out.Tribometry for the fuel showed that S8 fell between Jet-A and ULSD when friction force was calculated and showed higher wear over time and after each test when compared to that of Jet-A and ULSD. An initially higher running-in friction force of 0.35N to 0.38N was observed for all three tested fluids, and then quasi-steady-state lower values of friction force of .310N for S8, 0.320 N for Jet-A and 0.295N for ULSD (the lowest observed).Wear values obtained by mass loss of the tested AISI 108 steel disks show that Jet-A and the reference fuel ULSD may yield lower wear (which is associated to better lubricity) than that of S8, and microscopy images are consistent with the wear results. 

An investigation into emissions differences and their correlations with differing combustion characteristics between F24 and Jet-A was conducted. Raw emissions data was taken from a single stage jet engine by a FTIR gas analyzer. Measurements of H₂O, CO₂, CO, NOx, and total hydrocarbon emissions (THC) were taken at 60K, 65K, and 70K RPM. At 70K RPM Jet-A and F-24 the emissions were similar at approx.: 4% H₂O, 3% CO₂, 970 PPM CO, 28 PPM NOx. Jet-A THC emissions were approx.: 1200 PPM THC, F24 THC emissions were lower by over 60%. The significantly lower amount of THC emissions for F24 suggests more complete combustion compared to Jet-A. 

An investigation was conducted on the performance and emissions characteristics of two Fischer-Tropsch (F-T) synthetic kerosenes, Gas-to-Liquid (GTL) S8 and Coal-to-Liquid (CTL) Iso-Paraffinic Kerosene (IPK), in a high compression ratio research engine with separate combustion chamber and using neat ULSD as a baseline. A 50% and a 70% by mass blend S8 with ULSD and a 50% and a 70% by mass blend of IPK with ULSD were analyzed for performance and emissions at 5, 6, and 7 bar Indicated Mean Effective Pressure (IMEP) and 2400 rpm. Additionally, neat S8, neat IPK, and neat ULSD were investigated in the Constant Volume Combustion Chamber (CVCC) for Ignition Delay (ID), Combustion Delay (CD), and Derived Cetane Number (DCN). S8 was found to have the highest DCN at 62 with very short ID and CD while IPK was found to have the lowest DCN at 26 and with the longest ID and CD. ULSD has a DCN between the two F-T fuels at 48. As a result of its long ID and CD, IPK showed extended regions of Low Temperature Heat Release (LTHR) and Negative Temperature Coefficient Region (NTCR) in the CVCC. It was also found that neat IPK, 50ULSD50IPK, and 30ULSD70IPK exhibit little to no ringing events at peak pressure and after High Temperature Heat Release (HTHR). In the research engine, peak heat release for ULSD, 50ULSD50S8, and 50ULSD50IPK was found to be 24.2 J/CAD, 20.5 J/CAD, and 23.4 J/CAD respectively. Due to the increase of the DCN with the addition of S8 to the blend, the 50ULSD50S8 blend exhibited minimal difference between the pre-chamber and the main chamber as it ignites earlier in the cycle with the flame front traveling quickly to the main chamber. IPK, however, had a short physical ignition delay and a long chemical ignition delay, as indicated by its low DCN, takes longer to ignite and creates a more homogeneous mixture in the highly turbulent pre-chamber. This causes a spike in heat release in the pre-chamber before the flame front propagates to the main chamber. This resulted in 50ULSD50IPK having the highest Peak Pressure Rise Rate (PPRR) and 50ULSD50S8 having the lowest PPRR. While both fuel blends reduced the soot emissions due to their low aromatic content, 50ULSD50IPK showed a 25% reduction in soot when compared to ULSD while 50ULSD50S8 showed only a 6% reduction in soot when compared to neat ULSD. There was a increase in CO emissions with the addition of IPK and a reduction in CO at low load with the addition of S8. With both F-T fuels, CO2 and NOx were found to decrease. 

This research involves developing a drone control system that functions by relating EEG and EMG from the forehead to different facial movements using recurrent neural networks (RNN) such as long-short term memory (LSTM) and gated recurrent Unit (GRU). As current drone control methods are largely limited to handheld devices, regular operators are actively engaged while flying and cannot perform any passive control. Passive control of drones would prove advantageous in various applications as drone operators can focus on additional tasks. The advantages of the chosen methods and those of some alternative system designs are discussed. For this research, EEG signals were acquired at three frontal cortex locations (fp1, fpz , fp2 ) using electrodes from an OpenBCI headband and observed for patterns of Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) frequency-amplitude distributions. Five different facial expressions were repeated while recording EEG signals of 0-60Hz frequencies with two reference electrodes placed on both earlobes. EMG noise received during EEG measurements was not filtered away but was observed to be minimal. A dataset was first created for the actions done, and later categorized by a mean average error (MAE), a statistical error deviation analysis and then classified with both an LSTM and GRU neural network by relating FFT amplitudes to the actions. On average, the LSTM network had classification accuracy of 78.6%, and the GRU network had a classification accuracy of 81.8%. 

The effectiveness of obstacle avoidance response safety systems such as ADAS, has demonstrated the necessity to optimally integrate and enhance these systems in vehicles in the interest of increasing the road safety of vehicle occupants and pedestrians. Vehicle-pedestrian clearance can be achieved with a model safety envelope based on distance sensors designed to keep a threshold between the ego-vehicle and pedestrians or objects in the traffic environment. More accurate, reliable and robust distance measurements are possible by the implementation of multi-sensor fusion. This work presents the structure of a machine learning based sensor fusion algorithm that can accurately detect a vehicle safety envelope with the use of a HC-SR04 ultrasonic sensor, SF11/C microLiDAR sensor, and a 2D RPLiDAR A3M1 sensor. Sensors for the vehicle safety envelope and ADAS were calibrated for optimal performance and integration with versatile vehicle-sensor platforms. Results for this work include a robust distance sensor fusion algorithm that can correctly sense obstacles from 0.05m to 0.5m on average by 94.33% when trained as individual networks per distance. When the algorithm is trained as a common network of all distances, it can correctly sense obstacles at the same distances on average by 96.95%. Results were measured based on the precision and accuracy of the sensors’ outputs by the time of activation of the safety response once a potential collision was detected. From the results of this work the platform has the potential to identify collision scenarios, warning the driver, and taking corrective action based on the coordinate at which the risk has been identified. 

The Coal-To-Liquid (CTL) synthetic aviation fuel, Iso-Paraffinic Kerosene (IPK), was studied for ignition delay, combustion delay, pressure trace, pressure rise rate, apparent heat release rate in an experimental single cylinder indirect injection (IDI) compression ignition engine and a constant volume combustion chamber (CVCC). Autoignition characteristics for neat IPK, neat Ultra-Low Sulfur Diesel (ULSD), and a blend of 50%IPK and 50% ULSD were determined in the CVCC and the effects of the autoignition quality of each fuel were determined also in an IDI engine. ULSD was found to have a Derived Cetane Number (DCN) of 47 for the batch used in this experimentation. IPK was found to have a DCN of 25.9 indicating that is has a lower affinity for autoignition, and the blend fell between the two at 37.5. Additionally, it was found that the ignition delay for IPK in the CVCC was 5.3 ms and ULSD was 3.56 ms. This increase in ignition delay allowed the accumulation of fuel in the combustion chamber when running with IPK that resulted in detonation of the premixed air and fuel found to cause high levels of Ringing Intensity (RI) when running neat IPK indicated by the 60% increase in Peak Pressure Rise Rate (PPRR) when compared to ULSD at the same load. An emissions analysis was conducted at 7 bar Indicated Mean Effective Pressure (IMEP) for ULSD and the blend of 50% ULSD and 50% IPK. With the addition of 50% IPK by mass, there was found to be a reduction in the NO_x, CO₂, with a slight increase in the CO in g/kWh. 

The aeroelastic phenomena of ONERA M6 wing in transonic and supersonic flight regimes is computationally studied using a fully-coupled aeroelastic approach. The present research concerns the development of a computationally efficient and accurate method for the aeroelastic studies of fixed wing in transonic and supersonic flows. Therefore, we propose a fully-coupled, time-marching aeroelastic approach utilizing an URANS model. The computational studies are carried out to assess the effect of the freestream Mach number and angle of attack on the structural dynamics and stresses developed in the ONERA M6 wing. The studies are carried out for a range of Mach numbers, M∞ = 0. 8 – 1. 4, and angles of attack, α = {2°, 4°, 6°}. The analysis reveals that the aeroelastic deformation of the wing and induced stress in the wing structure increase with the freestream Mach number.