Practical propulsion systems such as rockets and gas turbines all operate at higher pressures. For example, the most powerful liquid rocket, the RD-170 families developed by the Soviet Union in the 1960s, has a thrust chamber pressure of 245 bar. At such high pressures, the injected liquid fuel is often at transcritical and supercritical states, for which the injection, evaporation and mixing processes are fundamentally different from those at low pressures. Our fundamental understanding of high-pressure reacting flows is far from complete, especially at transcritical and supercritical conditions. Modeling these processes has serious challenges due to the lack of a physical interface and departure from ideal gas behavior. In this talk, Prof. Qiao will discuss the use of molecular dynamics simulations to examine thermodynamics, transport properties, and fluid models of supercritical fuel systems.

Dr. Li Qiao is a Professor in the School of Aeronautics & Astronautics at Purdue University. She earned BS and MS degrees in Engineering Mechanics from Tsinghua University in 1999 and 2001, and a PhD in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Michigan in 2007. Her research focuses on the development of new technologies and the understanding of basic science in the areas of fuels, combustion, propulsion, and sustainable energy. She is the recipient of the NSF CAREER Award (2013), the AFOSR Young Investigator Award (2013), and the ARO Young Investigator Award (2010). She was a summer faculty fellow at NASA Glenn Research Center (2011) and Air Force Research Lab (2010). She is an AIAA Associate Fellow and a member of the AIAA Terrestrial Energy Systems Technical Committee. She is a member of the Board of Directors of the Combustion Institute, an international scientific society that promotes and disseminates research activities in all areas of combustion science and technology. She and her students received several prizes in the annual Art Competition of the Combustion Institute.

Women in High-Performance Computing

Researchers should cite this work as follows:

• Li Qiao (2020), "Molecular Dynamics Simulations for Propulsion Applications," https://nanohub.org/resources/34048.

  BibTex | EndNote

1. high-pressure reacting flows
2. materials science
3. molecular dynamics (MD)
4. propulsion
5. Simulation
6. thermodynamics