Paul Palies
Paul Palies is Associate Professor at UTSI and the founding director of the Combustion and Propulsion for Aviation Research Center (C-PARC) at UTSI. His research is in reacting fluid dynamics with specializations in aeronautical propulsion research and physics of premixed swirling flames. He developed an expertise in combustion dynamics applied to laboratory scale combustors and jet engines with a demonstrated experience in acoustics, combustion, and fluid dynamics. His published work has focused on understanding key physics and passive control strategies in this context as demonstrated by a patent, a book and several widely cited articles. He graduated from Ecole Centrale Paris in aerospace and from University of Paris XI in mechanics-physics. He has broad-band fundamentals knowledge in sciences and engineering. He holds a doctorate in combustion from Ecole Centrale Paris. His doctoral thesis investigated combustion dynamics mechanism identification, prediction, and passive control for swirl-stabilized flames with theoretical, experimental, and numerical methods. He was senior research scientist at the research center of United Technologies Corporation developing passive control strategy and modeling capabilities to support NASA ERA and Pratt and Whitney’s commercial combustors program. He is a reviewer for ASME IGTI, The Proceedings of the Combustion Institute, AIAA SciTech forum, Combustion and Flame, Combustion Science and Technology, and the International Journal of Spray and Combustion Dynamics. He is Senior Member of AIAA and was a member of the Propellants and Combustion AIAA Technical Committee between 2013 and 2023. He has been appointed USNC/TAM member and AIAA Professional Society representative for 2020-2023. He is member of the Combustion, Fuels and Emission Technical Committee of the ASME.
Chris Caulfield
Chris Caulfield is a Master’s student in the C-PARC group. His research focuses on premixed swirling flames and flame stabilization with hydrogen fuel under the guidance of Paul Palies. In May 2021, Chris graduated from Tennessee Technological University with a Bachelor of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering with a Mathematics minor. At TTU he was an active member of Engineers Without Borders and tutored Freshman to junior-level engineering courses. Chris enjoys hobbies such as Formula 1, 3D printing, and running. Chris is now a PhD student at Virginia Tech. View his MS thesis.
Lisa De Beer
Lisa De Beer is an undergraduate intern for C-PARC researching ideal quenching distances for flame arrestors with premixed flames. Her research is experimentally-based and under the guidance of Daniel Johnson and Paul Palies. She attends the University of Georgia (UGA) and is a junior studying mechanical engineering. At UGA, Lisa is a Teaching Assistant for Statics, a tutor for math, and a member of the Society of Women Engineers. After her undergraduate degree she plans on continuing her education into a Master’s degree. She is originally from Roswell, Georgia. Outside of academics, Lisa enjoys going to the gym, drinking coffee, reading, listening to music, and spending time with loved ones.
Hugo de Nercy-Maingard
Hugo de Nercy-Maingard is an engineering student from France. He studied aeronautical engineering for 5 years at ESTACA and specialized in engine and energy system integration. In addition, he will do a specialized master’s degree at SUPAERO next year in order to learn even more about aerospace propulsion. He did several internships during my studies, particularly in the field of aircraft maintenance, at Air France and VallJet (French business airline). This year, he will join UTSI as part of his engineering end-of-study internship. During these 6 months, he worked on the hydrogen-powered aircraft, in particular on its fuel system, from tank to combustor injector. The objective of his mission is to conduct research on this subject in order to offer solutions to retrofit a subsonic commercial aircraft such as the A320. Now engineer at MBDA.
Jordan Fabian
Jordan Fabian is an intern member of the C-PARC group and is currently attending The University of Tennessee Knoxville. He has finished one year of his aerospace engineering undergraduate degree with the Tickle College of Engineering in Knoxville. Jordan’s internship with C-PARC focuses primarily on laser ignition of hydrogen premixed fuel. He hopes to help propel the research being done and take in this valuable experience and use it throughout his future career. Jordan also would like to take this opportunity as a way to see a glimpse of the research and academia side of the engineering world.
Sagar Godse
Sagar Godse is a research engineer at C-PARC. He holds a M.S. in Mechanical Engineering (2010) as well as a M.S. in Industrial Engineering (2012) both from Texas Tech University. He has over 10 years of professional experience in various job roles such as senior engineer and team lead in industry. He is a six-sigma lean certified mechanical engineer vastly experienced in engineering field with focus from the initial conceptual stage to detailed design. He develops integrated approach to design and manufacturing for an efficient and robust product development. Sagar has strong team collaboration skills by working with team members to achieve engineering goals and he is committed to provide high quality outcomes to every project. He is a self-motivated professional consistently performing in challenging environments; works well under pressure, delivering within agreed time schedule and budgets and ensuring that quality solutions meet design objectives. He is actively contributing at C-PARC towards the development of hydrogen/air swirl burner experiment as well as coordinating lab instrumentation and diagnostics. Sagar skills encompasses design with various CAD and CAM suite of tools. Apart from work Sagar likes aero modeling, playing cricket, cooking different cuisines, film making and volunteering for pets.
Daniel Johnson
Daniel Johnson started working on his Ph.D. in January 2023 and has joined the C-PARC group. He will use experimental and theoretical modeling to research high-swirled premixed hydrogen/air flame stabilization mechanisms. Daniel received his Bachelor’s and Master of Science degrees in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. As an undergraduate, his senior design focus was orbital determination and propulsion systems. He presented his research, Mission Opportunities to Trans-Neptunian Objects – Part VI, at the 2019 Astrodynamics Specialist Conference in Portland, Maine. His Master’s studies focused on fluid dynamics, numerical analysis, modeling and design. After graduating in 2021, he accepted a position with a government contractor for the Space Force in Dahlgren, Virginia, where he worked for a year as an orbital analyst solving various operational orbital mechanics problems and processing data for orbit states and predictions to enable customer situational awareness in orbital analysis, space defense, and satellite collision avoidance. Daniel is originally from Middle Tennessee. In his spare time, he enjoys reading and spending time outdoors on hikes, camping, and scuba diving.
Joshua McBeth
Josh McBeth is a current undergraduate student at Embry Riddle Aeronautical University studying aerospace engineering with a minor in propulsion; who spent the summer of 2022 at UTSI working at C-PARC. His research is focused on the development of a H2/O2 flame by conducting simulations, gathering data and generating an operating performance map to establish viable operating conditions in order to provide baseline setting for heat exchanger design. After his internship he will head back to complete his degree while continuing his research under the guidance of Dr. Palies. Once he graduates, he wants to pursue a PhD focusing his research on propulsion. Outside of school, Josh loves to play soccer, spending time with friends and family and gaming.
Darrick Minshall
Darrick Minshall is a Mechanical Engineering major at the University of Utah. Darrick has always been fascinated by aerospace engineering, and often pestered his teachers in elementary school by flying paper airplanes in class. By studying mechanical design, his interest in airplanes developed into the goal of one day working in an environment where he could explore new ideas for aviation. Darrick’s internship with C-PARC at the University of Tennessee Space Institute has expanded upon his skills as an engineer by providing relevant to topics to study, giving him opportunities to generate never-before-seen ideas, and teaching him how to test his ideas in computer-based simulations. Darrick’s time at UTSI has improved his abilities as an engineer and he looks forward to applying what he’s learned in a professional career.
Tate Prater
Tate Prater is a first-year graduate student from Chattanooga, Tennessee. In the spring of 2021, he graduated from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville with a bachelor’s degree in aerospace engineering. His current role at the C-PARC group at UTSI includes one-dimensional flame simulations using the Cantera software as well as the study of fuel and air mixing-mechanisms to enable future lean, fully premixed combustion for gas turbine engines. I am grateful and excited to be a part of the C-PARC team where we have the opportunity to work towards clean aviation by greatly reducing the amounts of carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide emitted into the atmosphere. Outside of school, Tate enjoys playing sports, spending time with friends and family, and private piloting. Tate has been recruited as an Engineer for Boeing after his MS graduation.
Gan Xiao
The increase of computing power -over time has rapidly expanded the roles of DNS as an essential tool to provide insights into the intricate dynamics of the turbulence-chemistry interaction with emphasis on more complexity associated with real fuel effects chemistry and operating conditions approaching those realized in the realistic combustion systems. Nonetheless, the emphasis on realistic geometry has yet to be tackled as most configurations investigated focused on 3D DNS boxes with the periodic domain. My current work discusses a reacting fluid dynamic DNS simulation of a premixed H2/air swirling flame under high swirl atmospheric conditions and develop a computational strategy to compute at DNS resolutions a relevant high-swirl geometrical configuration by including the swirler part itself and solving two of the key flame and turbulence interaction physical scales. Gan Xiao likes running, driving, and cooking in my spare time, and enjoy the life at Tullahoma.