Hopkinson & Imperial Chemical Industries Professor of Applied Thermodynamics (1950)
Academic Division: Energy, Fluids and Turbomachinery
Research group: Energy
Telephone: +44 1223 3 32690
Email: em257@eng.cam.ac.uk
Research interests
Combustion is still at the heart of modern energy and, despite being an ancient technology, it is the least understood process of modern engineering systems, with no complete theoretical description available to this date. Knowledge on combustion is vital for decarbonising many hard-to-electrify sectors and also for understanding battery and forest fires, phenomena of great interest. Turbulent combustion in particular, which is ubiquitous in all fuel-using devices and fires, is sitting at the interface of two multi-scale non-linear phenomena: chemistry and turbulence. Professor Mastorakos's research aims to provide theories and background knowledge for combustion physics, with focus on how flames behave in gas turbines and diesel engines and on pollutants emitted.
The research revolves around simulations and experiments of many kinds of flames (gaseous or liquid fuels, premixed or non-premixed), different kinds of carbon content (hydrogen, methane, liquid fuels, sustainable aviation fuels) and in particular on "flames at the limit". We focus therefore on ignition and extinction phenomena that have a wide range of applications in modern low-emission propulsion systems. Our work on simulations and simulation tools includes reduced chemical mechanism construction, laminar flames, Direct Numerical Simulations of turbulent flames, and RANS and LES simulations of non-premixed reacting flows with the Conditional Moment Closure (CMC) method. Our CMC code is currently being used by various laboratories across the world. There is also experience with dispersion of reacting pollutants in the atmosphere, aerosol modelling, and airborne disease transmission. On the experimental side, our work includes combustion in porous media for hydrogen production for fuel cells, auto-ignition and spark ignition of turbulent non-premixed flames, spray combustion, and blow-off of flames.
Some of our work on disease transmission is included in the website https://airborne.cam
Some of our work on maritime decarbonisation and alternative fuels for shipping is included in the website https://lowcarbonship.com
For a full publications list, please see the ORCID record: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8245-5188
Strategic themes
Energy, transport and urban infrastructure
Combustion, gas turbines, diesel engines.
Teaching activity
Undergraduate: Currently 4A12 (Turbulence), 4A13 (Engines and Gas Turbines). Graduate: Energy Technologies MPhil course ETA1 (Energy Topics); Graduate module 5R10 (Turbulent Reacting Flows); Graduate module 5R18 (Environmental Fluid Mechanics and Air Pollution) - not given every year.
Other positions
- Combustion Research Coordinator in the University Gas Turbine Partnership (UGTP) with Rolls-Royce