creator Bittner, Peter R. advisor Clack, Herek L. Liquid fueled microcombustors face many challenges in their development, the most prominent being high temperature gradients and radiative effects. Because the walls of microcombustors are thin, they offer very little resistance to conductive heat transfer, regardless of the materials used. This can cause very high heat losses that lead to large temperature gradients in the gas compared to nearly uniform temperatures inside conventional combustion chambers. In this investigation a circular Couette flow reactor (CCFR) and planar laser induced fluorescence (PLIF) are used to examine the feasibility of studying vapor distributions of a monodisperse acetone droplet stream, formed by a vibrating orifice aerosol generator (VOAG), exposed to combinations of varying velocity gradients, temperature gradients and radiant heating. The acetone droplets are injected through various ports on the CCFR to vary the time for vaporization of the droplets inside the reactor. Initial results of the operating CCFR uses acetone droplets seeded into the test section to demonstrate the fluorescence of the liquid and vapor acetone within the test section. Submitted by Dana Lamparello (dlampare@iit.edu) on 2012-08-23T15:50:00Z No. of bitstreams: 2 Thesis.pdf: 2934530 bytes, checksum: e2fb2a7eab23290a8d30110eb6fedeaf (MD5) Signed Title.PDF: 718848 bytes, checksum: 979bc4aee5e3a99658fe721450009a7a (MD5) Made available in DSpace on 2012-08-23T15:50:00Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 Thesis.pdf: 2934530 bytes, checksum: e2fb2a7eab23290a8d30110eb6fedeaf (MD5) Signed Title.PDF: 718848 bytes, checksum: 979bc4aee5e3a99658fe721450009a7a (MD5) Previous issue date: 2012-05 M.S. in Mechanical, Materials, and Aerospace Engineering, May 2012 2012-04-28 2012-05 http://hdl.handle.net/10560/2829 en Thesis born digital application/pdf In Copyright http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/ Restricted Access MMAE / Mechanical, Materials, and Aerospace Engineering Illinois Institute of Technology Affiliated department