At the annual combustion conference Combura the combustion award 2017 has been award to the student with the best master thesis in the field of combustion. This year the price has been awarded to Ambrus Both for his work: RANS-FGM simulation of a n-heptane spray flame in OpenFOAM.

This year we’ve received submissions of students from Eindhoven en Delft. Most of the thesis were focuses on diesel engines. Varying from the validation of simple, fast models for the predication of NOx based on engine parameters to the effect of injection strategy on particulate matter emissions. Demonstrating that even such a well-known and relatively old technology as diesel combustion is still very relevant and optimization is still possible reducing the effects theses engines have on our environment.

In the end the award was given to a thesis which describes an alternative strategy to model liquid flames. In this work he introduces a novel way of coupling the properties of the droplets to the other variables in the CFD simulation. Where in previous models the properties needed to be stored in a look-up table, the properties are now directly linked to the underlying FGM variables. This results in a very lightweight approach. This is another important step in improving the results of FGM simulations with liquid fuels.

Ambrus described the complex theory behind FGM simulations and his liquid combustion model very clearly. Making it the perfect basis for further development.