Prof. William A. Sirignano

Professor William A. Sirignano

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering

3202 Engineering Gateway
University of California Irvine
Irvine, CA 92697-3975

Phone: (949) 824-3700
FAX: (949) 824-3773
E-mail: sirignan@uci.edu

Combustion, Fluid Dynamics and Propulsion Group

Brief Biography

Professor Sirignano was a Professor at Princeton University from 1967 to 1979 after receiving his Ph.D. from there in 1964. He was the George Tallman Ladd Professor and Department Head at Carnegie-Mellon University from 1979 to 1984 before becoming the Engineering Dean at UCI. He left the deanship and currently he holds the Henry Samueli Endowed Chair in Engineering at UCI. His major research interests include spray combustion, turbulent combustion and ignition, aerospace propulsion, rocket combustion instability, automotive combustion, energy conversion and air pollution, fire research, noise suppression, and applied mathematics.

A more detailed biography is also available.

Accomplishments

Professor Sirignano's major forefront research accomplishments include:

Analysis predicting periodic nonlinear oscillations with shockwaves in an unstable combustor;
Explanation of the nonlinear fluid dynamics associated with Helmholtz resonators;
Determination of admittance for oscillatory, three-dimensional nozzle flows;
Theory for condensed-phase behavior in flame spread above liquid and solid fuels;
Theory for ignition of combustible gas by a hot projectile;
Resolution of turbulent flame and propagation in reciprocating and rotary internal combustion engines;
Theory of droplet vaporization and convective heating with internal circulation; computational methods for spray flows;
Theory of droplet interactions in a dense spray; and analysis of driving mechanisms for combustion instability in rockets and ramjets.
Concept and analysis for improved efficiency and increased thrust with turbine burners.
Concept and analysis for miniature combustors with liquid-fuel films.

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Information for Prospective Students

There will be positions for new graduate students this next Fall in our research group. Stipends and support for tuition and fees are available when required for admitted students. Many prospective students informally send a CV and ask for an evaluation of the likelihood of gaining entrance. Professor Sirignano attempts to respond to every inquiry by a prospective graduate student. However, it is not possible to make a meaningful assessment of any individual's qualifications or likelihood of success at admission without seeing the completed formal application with reference letters in the standard format, transcripts, and official reports of GRE scores. So, it is best to make the formal application if you have a strong interest. If you note on your application that you have an interest in performing your research for the MS Thesis and / or PhD dissertation with Professor Sirignano, that application should be circulated to him by our administrators responsible for application processing and then he will carefully examine it.

As noted elsewhere in this web site, graduate students who have worked with Professor Sirignano have generally enjoyed very successful professional careers in academia, government, and industry. Several topics of major interests are studied within the group at any one time. The list of publications and the copies of slide presentations for research seminars, given elsewhere in this web site, should provide a useful overview of the research activities. The available graduate courses and degree requirements can be found at the UCI MAE web site http://mae.eng.uci.edu/

Many undergraduate students communicate with us requesting a research internship with Professor Sirignano. We can only accommodate undergraduate students who are prepared to pay their own costs and can stay for a period of one year, which is a minimal time to accomplish a significant piece of research. For example, summer internships are not available.

Status of Former Ph.D. Students and Postdocs

Ph.D. Advisees

Princeton University:

J.S. Tien	1970	Professor, Case Western Reserve
T.S. Tonon	1972	Solar engineering industry, New Jersey
P. Tang	1972	Researcher, Los Alamos National Laboratory
A.K. Varma	1972	Researcher, Bell Laboratories
C. Bruno	1973	Professor, University of Rome
J.R. Bellan	1974	Senior Scientist, JPL; Lecturer, Cal Tech
T.J. Rosfjord	1974	Manager, United Technologies Research Center
S. Prakash	1978	Professor, University of Roorkee, Hewlett-Packard
J.I. Ramos	1980	Professor, Carnegie Mellon University and University of Malaga
Y.P. Su	1981	Propulsion Chief, Lung-Tan Taiwan Government Laboratory
M. Micci	1981	Professor, Pennsylvania State University
A. Birk	1981	Researcher, Army Ballistics Research Laboratory
S.T. Lerner	1981	Senior VP and Chief Technical Officer, Praxair
S. Parker	1981	Researcher, Aeronautical Research Associates at Princeton

Carnegie Mellon University:

A.Y. Tong	1983	Associate Professor, University of Texas, Arlington
P. Givi	1984	Professor, SUNY, Buffalo and University of Pittsburgh
G. Patnaik	1985	Researcher, Naval Research Laboratories
A. Eaton	1988	Researcher, Brigham Young University

University of California, Irvine:

K. Molavi	1990	Engineering Consultant, Irvine
C.H. Chiang	1990	Associate Professor, KaoShiung Polytech Institute, Taiwan
D. Schiller	1991	Engineering, Boeing, Huntington Beach
R. Bhatia	1993	Manager, Dell Inc.
J.P. Delplanque	1993	Associate Professor, University of California, Davis
M. Masoudi	1998	Engineer, Adelphi, Inc.
C. Mehring	1999	Assistant Researcher, UCI

Postdoctoral Research Associates

A. Chervinsky	Deceased, formerly Lecturer, Technion
O.P. Sharma	Professor, IIT, Kampur
C.C. Feng	Professor, Trenton State College
C.K. Law	Professor, Princeton University
F.V. Bracco	Professor, Princeton University
H.S. Homan	Exxon Research Laboratories
J. Humphrey	Professor, UCB and U. of Va.; Dean, Bucknell University
A. Gany	Professor, Technion
L. Caveny	Air Force SDI Office
S.K. Aggarwal	Professor, University of Illinois, Chicago
R. Tal	Israel Defense Industry
R.H. Rangel	Professor and Department Chair, UCI
M.S. Raju	NYMA Researcher at NASA Glenn
B. Abramzon	Consultant, Israel
B. Cetegen	Professor and Department Chair, University of Connecticut
G. Continillo	Researcher, CNR, Italy
C.M. Megaridis	Professor, University of Illinois, Chicago
F.H. Tsau	Researcher, Industrial Technical Institute, Taiwan
J. Cai	Research Scientist, University of Singapore

Courses

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Recent Projects

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Publications

Recent Publications

BOOKS

Fluid Dynamics and Transport of Droplets and Sprays, Cambridge University Press, 1999.

BOOKS EDITED

Special Issue Co-Editor, Combustion Science and Technology, Vol. 174, 5-6, Taylor and Francis, 2002.

Series Editor, Combustion Science and Technology Self-Propagating High-Temperature Synthesis of Materials, (A.A. Borisov, L. DeLuca, and A. Merzhanov, eds.), Taylor and Francis, 2002.

Special Issue Co-Editor, Combustion Science and Technology, Vol. 176, 10, Taylor and Francis, 2004.

Special Issue Co-Editor, Combustion Science and Technology, Vol. 178, 10 & 11, Taylor and Francis, 2006.

BOOK CHAPTERS AND ARTICLES

"Distortion and Disintegration of Liquid Streams" (with C. Mehring), in Liquid Rocket Combustion Devices: Aspects of Modeling, Analysis, and Design, AIAA Progress in Astronautics and Aeronautics book series, Volume 200 (V. Yang, M. Habiballah, J. Hulba, and M. Popp, editors), 2005, pp. 167-249.

JOURNAL PUBLICATIONS AND CONFERENCE PROCEEDINGS

166. "Reduced Methanol Kinetic Mechanisms for Combustion Applications" (with S. Yalamanchili, R. Seiser, and K. Seshadri), Combustion and Flame, Vol. 142, 2005, pp. 258-65.

167. "Volume Averaging for the Analysis of Turbulent Spray Flows" International Journal of Multiphase Flow, Vol. 31, 2005, pp. 675-705.

168. "Linear Analysis of Liquid-Film Combustor," (with S. Stanchi and R. Imaoka), Journal of Propulsion and Power, 2005, for November issue.

169. "A Generalized Analysis for Liquid-fuel Vaporization and Burning," (with R. Imaoka), International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer, Vol. 48, 2005, pp. 4342-53.

170. "Transient Vaporization and Burning in Dense Droplet Sprays," (with R. Imaoka), International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer, Vol. 48, 2005, pp. 4354-66.

171.    “Liquid-Fuel Burning with Non-Unitary Lewis Number,” Combustion and Flame, in press, 2006.

172. “Flame Structure in Small-scale Liquid Film Combustors,“ (with T. K. Pham, D. Dunn-Rankin), Proceedings of the Combustion Institute, Vol. 31, in press, 2006.

173. “Stress-induced Cavitation for the Streaming Motion of a Viscous Liquid Past a Sphere,” (with J.C. Padrino, D. D. Joseph, T. Funada, J. Wang), Journal of Fluid Mechanics, in press, 2006.

174.    “Nonlinear Three-dimensional Distortion and Disintegration of Conical Liquid Films,” (with C. Mehring), abstract only, APS Fluid Dynamics Meeting, Washing, D.C., November 2000.

175.    “Liquid Film Disintegration Due to Gas Jet Impact,” (with C. Mehring), abstract only, APS Fluid Dynamics Meeting, Washington, D.C., November, 2000.

176.    “Ignition and Flame Studies for Turbulent Transonic Mixing in a Curved Duct Flow,” with (J. Chai, O. Icoz, and F. Liu), AIAA preprint 2001-0189, 39^th AIAA Aerospace Science Meeting, Reno, Nevada, January 2001.

177.    “Ignition and Flame Studies for a Turbulent Accelerating Transonic Mixing Layer” (with C. Mehring and F. Liu), AIAA preprint 2001-1096, 39^th AIAA Aerospace Sciences Meeting, Reno, Nevada, January 2001.

178.    “Opportunities and Challenges of Turbine Burners,” Plenary Lecture, 41^st Israel Annual Conference on Aerospace Sciences, Haifa, February 21-22, 2001.

PREPRINTS AND REPORTS

214. "Nonpremixed Combustion in an Accelerating Transonic Flow Undergoing Transition" (with F. Cheng, F. Liu), AIAA Aerospace Sciences Meeting, Reno, NV, January 2005.

215. Liquid-Film Combustion in Small Cylindrical Chambers," (with T.K. Pham, N. S. Amade, D. Dunn-Rankin), Joint Meeting of the US Sections of the Combustion Institute, Philadelphia, March 2005.

216. "Simulation and Experiments of a Liquid Fuel Film Burning off of a Flat Plate," (with Y.-H. Li, J. Papac, D. Dunn-Rankin), Joint Meeting of the US Sections of the Combustion Institute, Philadelphia, March 2005.

217. "A Generalized Analysis for Dense Sprays," (with R. Imaoka), ILASS 2005, Irvine, CA, May, 2005.

218. "Computations for Liquid-fuel Combustion: Sprays, Pools, and Films," Plenary Lecture Invited Paper, European Community on Computational Methods in Applied Sciences Conference on Computational Combustion, Lisbon, June 2005.

219. "Film Combustion in Small Cylinders," (with T.K. Pham, D. Dunn-Rankin), ICDERS 2005, Montreal, August 2005.

220. “Liquid Fuel Burning with Non-unitary Lewis Number,”   Paper 05F-52 Proceedings of the Western States Section / Combustion Institute Fall Meeting, Stanford University, October 17-18, 2005.

221. “Non-Premixed Combustion in an Accelerating Transonic Flow Undergoing Transition,” (with F. Cheng, F. Liu), APS Fluid Dynamics Meeting, Chicago, Illinois, November 2005.

222. “Recent Advances in Spray Combustion Theory,” Preprint AIAA2006-1522 Aerospace Sciences Meeting, Reno, NV, January 2006.

223. “Identification of Promising Naval Aviation Science and Technology Opportunities,” (co-authored with fifteen other members of the NRC Committee on Identification of Promising Naval Aviation Science and Technology Opportunities), National Research Council, March, 2006.

224. “Turbine Burners: Turbulent Combustion of Liquid Fuels,” (with F. Liu, D. Dunn-Rankin), preprinted for AFOSR/ ARO Contractors’ Meeting, Arlington, VA., June, 2006.

225. “Break-up of Liquid Streams at High Pressures,” (with D. D. Joseph), preprinted for AFOSR/ ARO Contractors’ Meeting, Arlington, VA., June, 2006.

226. “Instabilities in a Turning Reacting Mixing Layer Undergoing Transition,” (with F. Cheng, F. Liu), APS Fluid Dynamics Meeting, Tampa, Florida, November 2006.

227. “Cavitation in an Orifice Flow,” (with S. Dabiri, D. D. Joseph), Preprint AIAA 2006-1178, Aerospace Sciences Meeting, Reno, NV, January 2007.

228. “Non-Premixed Combustion in an Accelerating, Turning, Transonic Flow Undergoing Transition,” (with F. Cheng, F. Liu), Preprint AIAA Aerospace Sciences Meeting, Reno, NV, January 2007.

229. “Miniature Combustor with Liquid-Fuel Film,” (with D. Dunn-Rankin), NSF Final Report, February 2007.

230. “Theoretical Issues in Droplet Array Vaporization and Burning,” Paper # D01, 5th US Combustion Meeting, UC San Diego, March 25-28, 2007.

231. “Fuel/Air Mixing in a Model Turbine Burner Section,” (with N. Sarzi-Amade and D. Dunn-Rankin) Paper # E02, 5th US Combustion Meeting, UC San Diego, March 25-28, 2007.

232. “Combustion in a Flow Cavity,” (with B. Colcord), poster paper, 5th US Combustion Meeting, UC San Diego, March 25-28, 2007.

233. “Breakup of a Laminar Axisymmetric Liquid Jet,” (with S. Dabiri and D. D. Joseph), ILASS meeting, May 2007.

234. “Breakup of Liquid Streams at High Pressures,” (with S. Dabiri and D. D. Joseph), AFOSR/ ARO Contractors Meeting, June 2007.

235. “Turbine Burners: Turbulent Combustion of Liquid Fuels,” (with F. Liu and D. Dunn-Rankin), AFOSR/ ARO Contractors Meeting, June 2007.

236. “Miniature Fuel-Film Combustor: Flame Confinement and Stability,” (with R. Mattioli, T. K. Phamand D. Dunn-Rankin), 21st ICDERS, Poitiers, France, July 23-27, 2007.

237. “Final Report: Literature Review on Formation and Atomization of Emulsions,” (with S. Abbilian, C. D. Bolszo, A. A. Narvaez, D. Dunn-Rankin, and V. G. McDonell), Report to Siemens Power Corporation, July, 2007.

238. Flame Spread User Manual, (with F. Cherng, C. Mehring, and F. Liu) a report to NASA on three-dimensional flame-spread code, August 2007.

239. Flame Spread Documentation Report, (with F. Cherng, C. Mehring, and F. Liu) a report to NASA on three-dimensional flame-spread code, August 2007.

240. “Recent Theoretical Advances for Liquid-fuel Atomization and Burning,” Plenary Lecture Paper, Seventh International Symposium on Special Topics in Chemical Propulsion: Advancements in Energetic Materials & Chemical Propulsion, Kyoto, Japan, September, 2007.

241. “Multicomponent-Liquid-Fuel Vaporization with Complex Configuration,” (with G. Wu), preprinted for Western States Section/ Combustion Institute Meeting, Sandia Laboratories, October 2007.

242. “Combustion Model with Fuel Injection into and Air Flow past a Cavity,” (with B. Colcord), preprinted for Western States Section/ Combustion Institute Meeting, Sandia Laboratories, October, 2007.

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William Sirignano
sirignan@uci.edu
Last Modified:
2/5/07