Overview
This laboratory, centered in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at The Ohio State University, is led by Walter Lempert, Igor Adamovich, J. William Rich, and Vish Subramaniam. It has developed into a major center for experimental and theoretical research into fluids with substantial thermal mode and/or chemical disequilibrium, with an emphasis on aerospace and industrial applications, such as high-speed flow control, plasma-assisted combustion, molecular gas lasers, and plasma material processing.
The focus of the laboratory is on the physics of engineering environments such as electric discharges in gases, high temperature gas dynamic flows, gas lasers, and plasma chemical reactors. The work of the laboratory spans very basic studies of molecular energy transfer and chemical kinetics to the development of novel plasma chemical processes, special purpose gas lasers, and predictive models for the flow around aerospace vehicles. Emphasis is on collision-dominated, high density systems with vibrational and electronic mode disequilibrium.
Two recent presentations below summarize some of key research areas at NETL:
Nonequilibrium Gas Dynamics: Understanding of High-Speed Flows at Strong Energy Mode Disequilibrium (by Igor V. Adamovich): Seminar at the Department of Aeronautical Engineering,
Plasma Assisted Ignition and High-Speed Flow Control: Non-Thermal and Thermal Effects (by Igor V. Adamovich, Walter R. Lempert, J. William Rich, and Mo Samimy): Invited lecture at 19th Europhysics Conference on the Atomic and Molecular Physics of Ionized Gases, Granada, Spain, 15-19 July 2008
Thermal Mode Nonequilibrium in Gas Dynamics and Plasma Flows (by J. William Rich): AIAA 2008 Plasmadynamics and Lasers Lecture, AIAA 39th Plasmadynamics and Lasers Conference, Seattle, WA, June 25 2008