Simone Hochgreb is Professor of Combustion at the Univ of Cambridge.  She has developed measurement methods for reacting flows for autoignition, spray, soot and coal combustion in a range of devices. Her current work is in the application of optical diagnostics to understanding turbulent flames, combustion instabilities, pollutant emissions and flame synthesis. Prior to Cambridge she held positions at MIT and Sandia National Labs. She is a Fellow of the Royal Aeronautical Society, and has received the Wolfson Merit Award and the Society of Automotive Engineers Ralph R. Teetor Award.

Understanding the structure and dynamics of turbulent reacting flows via selective experiments

Predictions about the evolution of turbulent reacting and non-reacting flows approach increasingly fidelity at the largest scales via LES, and smallest via DNS. There is still a battle in the middle ground, for which models must be proposed and validated. Although quasi-DNS calculations continue to be demonstrated, we are still far from a one size fits all approach to modelling turbulent reacting flows. Sensible but not necessarily thoroughly validated models abound as the fill in the spaces left between the grid size and the scales of interest. In particular, mixing and reactions necessarily take place at the molecular level, and require special tools for understanding the interaction between models and experiments. In this talk, we examine the structure of turbulent premixed flames, what the models and measurements say about them, and where experiments and models are trying to meet. In particular, we discuss a recent series of experiments on stratified flames as an illustration of the current progress and some surprises.