Prairie View A&M University was awarded a $2,999,568 federal grant to perform research on high-pressure combustion in microgravity. The funding comes through NASA’s Minority University Research and Education Project (MUREP) Institutional Research Opportunity (MIRO) program, which supports the training and development of students and faculty at targeted colleges and universities.
A cross-departmental team lead by Dr. Ziaul Huque, a Professor in the College of Engineering will establish a Center for High Pressure Combustion in Microgravity. The Center’s research will emphasize both experimental and numerical investigations of liquid fuel combustion under high pressure representative of practical engines. The Center will collaborate with NASA Glenn Research Center and three mentor universities (Cornell, Georgia Tech, and Auburn University) to build the research capability in high-pressure combustion at Prairie View.
Dr. Huque, the Center Director, will lead the numerical simulations at Prairie View. Dr. Yuhao Xu, the Center’s Associate Director, will lead the high-pressure combustion experiments. Dr. Paul Biney and Dr. Jianren Zhou will be the Technical Coordinator and Education Coordinator of the Center, respectively. The funding of the NASA Center will also significantly promote new graduate program(s) in Mechanical Engineering, create new engineering courses, and train students for tomorrow’s highly competitive global workforce.