Message
The Combustion Institute is an international scientific society headquartered at Pittsburgh, USA. The purpose of the Institute is to promote the research activities in the field of alternate fuel, clean coal combustion, combustion in gas turbine, rockets and other high speed airbreathing engines and all other topics related to combustion science and Technology among researchers, academicians, scholars and scientists world over.
The Combustion Institute-Indian Section (CIIS) is one among the 37 Sections of the Combustion Institute spread world over and has its head office at IIT Madras, Chennai. The activities of the CIIS commenced in 1974 through a National symposium on Combustion and since then it has been conducting such activities at various parts of the country. The CIIS organized 8th Asia Pacific Conference on Combustion (ASPAC) in December 2010 at Hyderabad. The next ASPAC will be hosted by us in the year 2027 in IIT Mumbai.
Recently, we had a very important conference on “Hydrogen Energy utilisation” in Alliance university, Bangalore. Hybrid engines are likely to be used till 2035 in transportation sector to cover the distance of 40 km using battery power, 40 to 100 km by the combination of battery and IC engine and greater than 100km by IC engine. The private sector companies such as Honda City, Toyota, Tata and Mahindra are launching hybrid vehicles. The academic research towards design, realisation and testing is an important component to hand hold the development in our Industry. Hydrogen engines are very much relevant today as a prime mover for hybrid vehicles and IC engines.
Combustion of Hydrogen is an emerging area due to clean exhaust devoid of pollutants. Strategy for production, storage, and distribution of Hydrogen require dedicated research effort.
Emission reduction using alternate fuels is still a subject of investigation. 20% Ethanol in gasoline (e-20) is used predominantly. The ethanol can be sourced from sugarcane and bio-mass. Use of gasoline with blends gives the advantage of cost to the customer. Bio fuels lead to reduction of carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide by 20%. 100% methanol operation replacing CNG in buses will have to be contemplated with either a new engine or a retro fitted engine as the operational advantages are high. The research and development on alternative fuels is a continuous process, which needs to be highlighted in CI IS activities.
Coal gasification needs to be carried out to convert the coal to methanol and has been done at BHEL, Hyderabad, Thermax, Pune and Sinfer, Dhanbad with a turnover of 1000kg/day. Gasification research is yet another thrust area that needs manpower development and focus.
Necessary impetus will be provided through the scheduled activities of CI IS. The members should enable application oriented research related to the development of IC engines for UAVs and drones; Wankel engine for small gas turbines; Cooled Scramjet engine for hypersonic propulsion leading to hypersonic cruise missiles; detonation wave engines to replace gas turbine engines, ramjet engines and rocket engines. Fundamental research areas such as flameless combustion and nano-boron combustion are some of the areas needing research efforts. Combustion dynamics, chemical kinetics, sprays and atomisation, high speed combustion diagnostics, instrumentation and fire research are some of the topics, which are needing attention and to be deliberated through workshops, conferences and lecture series leading to the evolution of road maps for the National mission.
On behalf of the members of the combustion Institute-Indian Section and my own behalf I request all of you to become the life members of CI IS to join the forum of engineers, scientists and academia to network and share technical information on the latest developments in the fields of I C Engines, combustion and propulsion. I am sure that your participation will motivate the combustion community in our country and inspire the budding youngsters to take up application-oriented combustion research.
Dr V.K. Saraswat
(Chairman, The CIIS)