This Project Grant award, valued at $317,959, was provided by the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Geosciences Program (CFDA 47.050) to Florida State University (FSU) to conduct research aimed at gaining predictive understanding of the physical processes behind rapid wildfire spread and associated smoke transport. The key objectives of this 3-year project are to: Perform non-modal instability analysis of fire smoke plumes to delineate the key processes responsible for rapid growth of...
This $400,000 two-year Project Grant from the National Science Foundation's Division of Chemical, Bioengineering, Environmental, and Transport Systems will fund research at Worcester Polytechnic Institute to better understand the role of non-steady winds on wildfire spread. Specifically, the award will support examination of the physical mechanisms by which gusting winds interact with flame-driven wildfire spread and firebrand spotting. Novel imaging methods will also be used to measure these...
This $370,000 project grant from the National Science Foundation's Engineering program (CFDA 47.041) will fund research at The University of Alabama in Huntsville to improve understanding of wildfire behavior in heterogeneous fuel mixtures from July 2022 to June 2025. The research aims to identify key physical and chemical processes controlling ignition and spread of fire in mixtures of living and dead fuels through controlled experiments and computational simulations. Lasers and other...
Oregon State University was awarded a $530,078 project grant from the National Science Foundation Division of Chemical, Bioengineering, Environmental, and Transport Systems under the Engineering federal grant program (CFDA 47.041). The grant will fund research from July 1, 2022 to June 30, 2025 to better understand the physical and chemical processes controlling wildfire spread within heterogeneous mixtures of live and dead fuels. The university will conduct experiments and computational...
The University of Utah received a $100,000 project grant award from the National Science Foundation Division of Chemical, Bioengineering, Environmental, and Transport Systems federal grant program titled Engineering (CFDA #47.041). Through this award, the University will undertake research to better understand and predict complex wind-driven wildfire propagation patterns using dynamical systems theory. Specifically, the University aims to uncover coherent patterns in wind data that could provide...
This $599,974 National Science Foundation project grant under the Engineering program (CFDA 47.041) will fund the creation of a physics-based computational model for predicting structural ignition risks from wildfires at the University of Michigan from January 2023 through December 2025. The model will simulate ignition from firebrands on structures using a probabilistic multiphase Eulerian approach for transport and the discrete element method for firebrand fracture and mass loss. It will be...
This $219,022 federal Project Grant award from the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Engineering program (CFDA 47.041) supports research to quantify the heat transfer from accumulated firebrands to recipient surfaces. The primary objectives are to conduct numerical simulations to understand the effects of firebrand properties and their interactions on deposition patterns, incorporate surface fuel morphology to assess its influence on deposition and heat transfer, and develop a data-driven heat...
This Project Grant from the National Science Foundation Division of Chemical, Bioengineering, Environmental, and Transport Systems provides $284,564 to develop an advanced optical sensor using background-oriented schlieren tomography to characterize wildfire dynamics. Funded under the NSF Engineering program (CFDA 47.041), the research aims to perform time-resolved, volumetric measurements of wildfire combustion processes through a physics-informed closure for tomographic reconstruction. The...
The National Science Foundation (NSF) Division of Chemical, Bioengineering, Environmental, and Transport Systems awarded a $383,716 Project Grant to The Regents of the University of Colorado to improve understanding and predictive modeling of soot formation in wildfires. The 3-year project under the NSF Engineering program (CFDA 47.041) will utilize advanced experimental techniques to investigate the chemical precursors and growth mechanisms for soot particles emitted from the pyrolysis and...
The National Science Foundation Division of Chemical, Bioengineering, Environmental, and Transport Systems awarded Worcester Polytechnic Institute a $399,095 Project Grant under the Engineering (47.041) federal grant program. The grant will fund research from September 2021 through August 2025 to study flame spread response to non-steady airflow. As part of its mission to improve engineering research and education, the Engineering program supports projects that foster innovation in...