Casey Allen

Background

About Casey Allen

Our lab's research spans three key areas:(1) combustible dust reactivity and mixture formation,(2) transient emission measurement and modeling,(3) fuel ignition characterization.COMBUSTIBLE DUST REACTIVITY AND MIXTURE FORMATION:Roughly companies in the U.S. are involved in the production or handling of combustible dust, which can pose a significant explosion hazard. The reactivity of these powders is strongly sensitive to their physical characteristics, such as particle size, and their local concentrations. Our lab is investigating how standard test methods such as ASTM E1226 may overestimate explosibility metrics due to the conventional dispersion techniques used in the experiments. We are also focused on characterizing mixture formation in closed vessels (e.g, silos) to estimate the extent of explosible concentrations, which plays a role in explosion pressures and rates of propagation.TRANSIENT EMISSION MEASUREMENT AND MODELING:Emissions from internal combustion engines are closely scrutinized, and regulations will only become more stringent in the coming years as governments place new restrictions on specific chemical pollutants and their emitted mass. Drive cycles and fleet routing must be optimized to meet these regulations, which will require accurate, real-time predictions of combustion emissions. To address these needs, our lab has developed a technique for high-speed, comprehensive emissions measurements. This technique allows emission events during short, transient engine conditions to be accurately characterized. The comprehensive nature of the technique provides detailed speciation data to identify the most toxic and environmentally-damaging pollutants. We are using this technique to build real-time emissions models.FUEL IGNITION CHARACTERIZATION:Our lab's fuel research is focused on experimentally characterizing the ignition behavior for hydrocarbon and alternative fuels as the environmental temperature and pressure conditions change. These data play a critical role in the design of new engine technologies. We have also been active in the development of new computational tools and models for more robust insight into the experimental data.