Advanced Propulsion and Energy Laboratory
Laser and Optical Diagnostics for Next Generation Propulsion Systems
Shruti Ghanekar was recognized for her contributions to improving Firefighter Safety and presented the Award for Student Excellence in Furthering Firefighter Life Safety by the University of Illinois Fire Service Institute.
Shruti’s graduate research is focused on developing infrared absorption spectroscopy based measurement systems and deploying them in residential fire environments to quantify and study species concentrations.
Our research group is part of a team that has been awarded a $7.5M MURI award to study turbulence and chemistry interaction in hypersonic propulsion systems. The announced was made today at https://www.cto.mil/2021-muri/. Our group with work with the University of Queensland in Australia to conduct laser and optical measurements in supersonic reactive flow paths.
Shruti Ghanekar (PhD candidate) successfully completed a 2.5 month long data collection campaign in collaboration with Illinois Fire Service Institute (IFSI) and UL Firefighter Safety Research Institute (FSRI) at FSRI’s facility in Delaware County, PA. The objective of her campaign was to quantify hydrogen cyanide concentration in the residential fire environment using a prototype Infrared Tunable Diode Laser Absorption Spectroscopy (IR-TDLAS) based measurement system developed by Ms. Ghanekar as part of her PhD research. The experiments conducted primarily focused on trapped occupant survivability and were a part of UL FSRI’s Residential Home Size-up and Search and Rescue Operations Project. More information on the project can be found at https://ulfirefightersafety.org/research-projects/size-up-and-search-rescue.html.