Call for Abstracts

A key priority in global hydrogen deployment strategies is the development and scaling of carbon-free hydrogen production pathways. Among the leading technologies being pursued, water electrolysis stands out as a cornerstone for achieving deep decarbonization of hydrogen production by 2050. Several electrolysis technologies exist, but alkaline and proton exchange membrane systems are currently the most mature, representing roughly 60% and 22% of the global market in 2023, respectively. Despite their promise, electrolysis systems are subject to specific safety challenges related to hydrogen leaks. The nuclear community has developed, over decades of research, a substantial knowledge spanning for ignition of slow flames to the generation of fast flames eventually leading to detonation, but also on mitigation methods, passive and active measures.

The present talk will focus on describing the key feature of hydrogen-explosion safety with an overview of the different combustion regimes and map the explosion hazard from subsonic to supersonic combustion and the impact on structures. Examples based on ICARE’s work on hydrogen safety assessment and mitigation methods will be given.

Ammonia is a potential hydrogen carrier for power generation because of its higher energy density and easier storage and transportation. However, ammonia slips, high NOx/N2O emissions, and fast metal surface nitridation have made it challenging in direct applications to existing gas turbine and diesel engine applications.

In this lecture, we will first discuss the potential impact of ammonia combustion on emissions, climate, and metal surface nitridation. Then, we will present the results of NOx/N2O of high pressure (100 atm) low temperature oxidation. The three important low temperature ammonia oxidation kinetic pathways and its impact on warm flames and detonation transition will be presented.

After that, direct measurements of critical radicals such as NHx/HO2 in ammonia combustion using Faraday rotational spectroscopy and femtosecond laser absorption will be discussed. The data will be used to determine the rates of important elementary reactions such as HO2+NH2 and examine the metal surface nitridation mechanism.

Finally, a new concept of high pressure fully premixed turbulent jet stirred ammonia combustion will be presented. The potential of plasma assisted ammonia combustion for low NOx emissions will also be discussed.

Understanding soot inception, the self-assembly of gas-phase molecules into carbonaceous nanoparticles, remains a fundamental challenge in combustion science. Advances in mass spectrometry and atomic force microscopy reveal that simple physical dimerization of small aromatics is thermodynamically unviable at flame temperatures, rendering traditional kinetic models non-predictive. Instead, molecular growth proceeds via curved PAHs and large aromatic oligomers ("aromers") through physically stabilised soot inception, where localized radicals and reactive edges bridge physical and chemical routes.

Critically, the transition to alternative fuels does not eliminate this soot challenge. Co-firing hydrocarbons with low-carbon vectors like ammonia introduces complex chemical cross-talk, where partially cracked ammonia creates a non-linear competition between ammonia-driven soot inhibition and hydrogen-driven soot promotion alongside a distinct soot trade-off. Capturing these competing pathways within unified, physically stabilised inception frameworks represents a vital frontier for predictive modelling in future net-zero combustors.

Understanding detonation propagation in non-uniform mixtures is essential for rotating detonation engines, hypersonic propulsion, and explosion safety. This talk explores the dynamics and critical conditions governing detonation propagation in spatially inhomogeneous reactive mixtures. Recent advances are presented, with a focus on thermal stratification, inert layers, and multi-dimensional mixture non-uniformity. The effects of non-uniformity on detonation initiation, quenching, reinitiation, propagation speed, and cellular structure are examined.

In hypersonic reactive flows, thermal stratification can produce autoignition-driven reaction fronts, oblique detonation waves, or decoupled shock/reaction fronts, depending on the temperature gradient. For detonation across inert layers, successful reinitiation occurs only below a critical layer thickness; and transverse shock interactions induce local autoignition/explosion and overdriven detonation. Besides, a double cellular structure is observed for relatively large spacing between inert layers. The formation of double cellular structure is interpreted.

This speech focuses on the combustion fundamentals and combustion technologies of zero-carbon ammonia fuel in compression-ignition engines. Combustion reaction kinetics model for binary fuels with high ammonia proportions was developed, enabling high-accuracy prediction of the fundamental combustion characteristics of ammonia fuel and engine combustion processes. Combustion control methods for ammonia-fueled engines based on the coordinated control of fuel reactivity and ignition strategy was proposed, providing a technical guidance for the efficient and stable operation of ammonia-fueled engines.

As global industries and power systems pursue net-zero ambitions, hydrogen and ammonia are emerging as important fuels for the future of power generation. Significant progress has been made in combustion technologies, enabling higher hydrogen blending ratios and reducing overall emissions. However, the pace of market adoption will ultimately depend on economics, infrastructure readiness, policy support, and evolving customer requirements.

This presentation will provide a brief industry perspective on the commercialization of hydrogen and ammonia gas turbines, drawing on market developments across power generation, industrial energy applications, and emerging hydrogen value chains. It will explore priority market segments, key adoption drivers, customer expectations, deployment challenges, and the role of gas turbine technology in enabling a practical and scalable energy transition. The presentation will also highlight lessons learned from early demonstration and commercial projects, and provide an outlook on how industry stakeholders can bridge the gap between technology readiness and large-scale commercial implementation.

Knock limits the compression ratio, and hence the thermal efficiency, of spark-ignition engines. Conventional measures such as the octane number are relative and empirical, while integral methods require assumptions of homogeneity, single-stage ignition and history independence.

Our theory of the explosive transition of deflagration approaches knock from a different direction, by asking where the limit of flame existence lies and under what condition the reaction turns explosive, conditions governed mainly by temperature. Building on this theory, a hierarchy of systems, from a practical engine through a constant-volume chamber to one-dimensional direct numerical simulation, is connected by the pressure-temperature history of the end gas, reducing the engine to lower-dimensional systems from first principles so that the theoretical picture can be tested directly against engine conditions.

Recent progress and the outlook for predicting knock onset are discussed.

High-fidelity simulation is a key enabler of Physical AI for multi-regime combustion, yet industrial-scale dataset generation remains constrained by computational cost.

Rankyee addresses this challenge with DIMAXER, which integrates high-order Space-Time Expansion of Kinetic Energy Preserving Flux Reconstruction (STE-KEP-FR) with GPU computing and compressible flamelet-generated manifold (FGM) modeling. An oscillation-free formulation suppresses spurious numerical oscillations in compressible variable-density flows, while multi-dimensional FGM incorporates heat loss and multi-stream mixing. Neural FGM replaces high-dimensional table lookup with neural approximations of flamelet-based thermochemical mappings, reducing storage requirements as manifold dimensionality increases.

Case studies include Full-Annulus Combustor, Coupled Full-Engine Simulation, and Reusable Heavy-Lift Launch Vehicle Simulation. The full-annulus FGM large-eddy simulation (LES) uses 2 billion solution points on 15 RTX Pro 6000 GPUs, while the reusable launch vehicle simulation reaches 10 billion solution points. KJ66 Combustion Simulation further demonstrates a 400-million-point LES on eight consumer-grade RTX 4090D GPUs.

These results demonstrate the computational feasibility of engineering-scale data generation. Rankyee outlines a path toward scalable production of spatially and temporally resolved flow and thermochemical data through workflows assisted by large language models and cloud computing, supporting combustion AI and digital twins.

Driven by the urgent need for maritime decarbonization, the exploration of zero- and low-carbon marine alternative fuels has become a focal point of global research. This lecture presents the recent advancements in marine alternative fuel and engine technologies, focusing on the fundamental combustion science and applied engineering innovations.

The talk will detail the transition pathways toward fuels such as biofuels, methanol, and ammonia in the maritime sector. Special attention will be given to the latest breakthroughs in the development of large ship engines, including advanced injection strategies, new design concepts for nozzle holes, the application of dedicated lubricant and fuel additives, as well as in-cylinder emission control technologies.

Ultimately, the lecture will summarize the current technological readiness and future research directions for developing highly efficient and clean marine power systems.

Effective thermal management and mitigation of fire risks associated with unexpected thermal runaway are critical to the safe and reliable deployment of lithium-ion batteries. This talk presents our recent research on computational fluid dynamics (CFD)-based modeling and simulation (M&S) of battery thermal management, thermal runaway, and fire dynamics, with particular emphasis on validating the underlying methodologies. Case studies include the thermal performance of a 48-cell battery pack, thermal runaway behavior in an 8-cell nickel manganese cobalt (NMC) battery pack, and an electric vehicle fire in a tunnel. These studies demonstrate how validated M&S tools can provide insights into heat transfer, thermal runaway propagation, and fire development. By enabling systematic evaluation of battery configurations, cooling strategies, and fire scenarios, these tools can support battery performance improvements, guide thermal management design, and assess the fire safety conditions arising from battery incidents, informing risk mitigation and emergency response planning.

Ammonia is emerging as a carbon-free energy carrier that is easier to store and transport than hydrogen, but turning it into reliable power at scale requires efficient, compact conversion technology. This presentation introduces Amogy, a company developing ammonia-to-power systems that decarbonize stationary, maritime, and heavy industries.

The presentation will describe Amogy's proprietary catalyst technology for ammonia conversion and show how it is integrated into a complete ammonia-to-power system, from ammonia feed through conversion to electricity generation. Will then present several application examples showing how the approach can be deployed across different power and industrial use cases. The talk concludes with perspectives on how ammonia-based power can support the transition to low-carbon energy systems.

Using carbon-free ammonia as a fuel is considered as a potential pathway for maritime decarbonization. Beyond concerns over future supply of green ammonia, whether ammonia engines themselves can deliver high efficiency and low emissions remains a central question. This presentation summarizes the recent development of marine ammonia engines, including the performance and emissions of different engine categories and combustion modes. It then shares technologies applicable to four-stroke medium-/high-speed engines and two-stroke low-speed engines, respectively. Finally, it discusses the potential of combustion similarity theory and scaled-model experiments to support the intensive development of ammonia engines.