Combustion research initiated by Dr. Wenting Sun has been chosen to receive a $360,000 grant from the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR) through its Young Investigator Research Program (YIP).

The prestigious award will fund "Explosive Ozonolysis Reactions for Combustion Control" - an investigation of new techniques to control combustion in hypersonic vehicles (vehicles traveling between five to eight times the speed of sound).

Sun was one of just 56 young scientists nationwide to receive the grant, which is awarded annually to rising stars in the scientific community who have received their doctorates within the last five years. This year, more than 260 scientists applied.

Sun's research team will focus on both the experimental and numerical investigation of explosive ozonolysis reactions - the spontaneous reactions between ozone and unsaturated hydrocarbons. The goal is to use his findings to control combustion for hypersonic vehicles.

"This (ozonolysis) is something new for aerospace, perhaps, but atmospheric scientists have been studying this process for awhile," said Sun.

"We will be looking a their effect on flame dynamics and the kinetics relevant to flying at hypersonic speeds. Currently they are missing in combustion kinetic mechanisms."

Ultimately, Sun points out, his research will give engine designers a new arsenal of tools to produce hypersonically propelled aircraft- vehicles able to travel at speeds in excess of five times the speed of sound.

"Right now, the engine conditions at hypersonic speeds are too harsh to allow combustion at those speeds. The air flow is too rapid to burn the fuel. It's there for just milliseconds. And if the fuel doesn't burn, we cannot get the thrust we need."

Why go so fast?

"Well, I guess you could use this technology to pick a peach off the tree in Georgia and send it to California in a few minutes," Sun quipped.

"But that would be a very expensive peach. The Air Force is interested in this because it will allow them to reach any place on earth in two hours or less. There are lots of reasons why that is an important goal, worth the expense."

In addition to supporting research that has long-interested Sun, the AFOSR grant shines some much-deserved attention on the field of combustion.

"This is a classic field, one that has been studied for years and years, so a lot of people think that combustion research cannot yield new findings," he said. "But I think with this research we are showing that is not true. We are finding new mechanisms for this classic field."