Faculty Profiles
|
Indrek Wichman |
| Professor | |
| Michigan State University | |
| Mechanical Engineering | |
| 147 Engineering Research Complex South | |
| East Lansing, MI 48824-1226 | |
| Ph:(517) 353-9180 | |
| Fax:(517) 353-1750 | |
| wichman@egr.msu.edu | |
| http://www.egr.msu.edu/~wichman/ | |
| RESEARCH INTERESTS In our group we examine problems in theoretical and experimental fire and combustion research. This includes analytical modeling of fire, ignition, flame quenching, flame spread, triple flames and flame instabilities. A new and particularly exciting area of research is on microgravity flamelets which appear in near-limit atmospheres. This research is a flight-definition project that is funded by the NASA Microgravity Combustion Division. In our computational researrch we are studying flame spread, triple flames, and the flame-to-flamelet transition. In our experiments we use the MSU Fire Tunnel to study basic flame spread phenomena, we examine flamelets in simulated microgravity conditions (in the MSU Hele-Shaw combustion facility) and we examine miniature flames in small-scale torches and combustors. CURRENT RESEARCH SUPPORT NASA Microgravity Combustion: "Analysis of Thermao-diffusive and Hydrodynamic Instabilities in Near-extinction Limit Atmospheres = ATHINA," January, 2003 -January, 2008. RECENT PUBLICATIONS 1. Wichman, I. S., "Material Flammability, Combustion, Toxicity and Fire Hazard in Transportation," Progress in Energy and Combustion Science, Vol. 29, pp. 247-299 (2003). 2. Wichman, I. S. and Varatharajan, B., "Structure of Flame Nidus in an Opposed partially Premixed Flow with Heat Losses," Combustion Science and Technology, Vol. 175, pp. 901-932 (2003). 3. Zeng, G., Wichman, I. S. and Benard, A., "Energy Balance Analysis if Ignition Over a Melting Polymer Subjected to a High Radiation Heat Flux in a Channel Cross Flow," Fire Safety Journal, Vol. 38, pp. 229-256 (2003). |
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