University of Central Florida , located in Orlando , Florida , celebrates its 40 th year with a current enrollment of over 40,000 students and research expenditure of nearly $100 million. UCF strives to become the “nation's leading metropolitan research university recognized for its intellectual, cultural, technological, and professional contributions and renowned for its outstanding programs and partnerships.” Research and education activities at UCF, related to turbine systems, including those supported by AGTSR and UTSR administered by SCIES, have made significantly contributions to technological development, student recruitment and, curriculum development. UCF has been awarded several times by AGTSR and UTSR in the area of combustion, heat transfer/aerodynamics and materials. These projects have also prompted other research grants from NSF, NASA and industrial partners.

Combustion: E. Petersen (petersen@mail.ucf.edu) Activity in the area of combustion includes fundamental measurements and analyses of chemical kinetics processes, including ignition, pyrolysis, and oxidation in gas-phase systems. Facilities include a pressure-driven shock-tube that provides the temperatures seen in gas turbine combustors in a controlled manner, yielding data for the calibration of chemical kinetics models and the development of empirical correlations. Chemical kinetics modeling is performed with the Chemkin suite of software. The capability for performing heterogeneous measurements such as spray combustion also exists with the UCF shock tube, and unique methods for performing such experiments are presently under development. Also under development is a facility for measuring the flame speeds of realistic gas turbine mixtures at elevated pressure.

Heat Transfer/Aerodynamics: J. Kapat (jkapat@mail.ucf.edu) and A. Kassab (kassab@mail.ucf.edu) Research in heat transfer and aerodynamics combine experimental and computational efforts on advanced cooling / heat transfer for endwall, airfoil, and tip. Experimental rig includes a transonic linear cascade for film cooling under representative Mach number. This rig can accommodate typical transition pieces at the inlet to the test section, and includes jet-grids for creation of high level of turbulence in a controlled fashion. Another rig provides LN2-cooled, high density ratio film cooling with metal test coupons, along with sophisticated dehumidification scheme for coolant injection with high density ratios. Computation research effort focuses on the fundamental development of boundary element methods in heat transfer and fluid dynamics with emphasis on conjugate heat transfer, coupled field problems, inverse problems, with applications in multidimensional heat transfer coefficient reconstruction, identification of contact resistance and thermal conductivity.

Materials: Y.H. Sohn (ysohn@mail.ucf.edu) and V.H. Desai (vdesai@mail.ucf.edu) Materials engineering for turbine applications have been one of the main thrust areas of research at UCF. Current and recent activities include assessment of failure mechanisms and non-destructive evaluation of thermal barrier coatings (TBCs), development of bond coats and overlay protective coatings, multicompoent-multiphase diffusion and phase transformation, steam oxidation of superalloys, repair technologies for superalloys, and environmental degradation of ceramic matrix composites (CMCs). Facility for materials engineering includes state-of-the-art characterization techniques, both non-destructive and microstructural, various thermal and environmental testing instruments, and processing techniques (under development) such as air plasma spray (APS) and high velocity oxy-fuel (HVOF) systems.

www.mmae.ucf.edu/~ysohn