Advancing Optical Diagnostics for Future Energy Systems

The meeting welcomes contributions from researchers at the frontier of new developments and applications of laser and optical diagnostics. Energy systems all over the world are changing very rapidly. On one hand, fossil fuels will continue to provide much of the energy for transportation systems, particularly for aeroengines and space applications. However, future power, heating, and transportation systems are likely to diversify to decarbonized sources such as hydrogen, ammonia, and other synthetic or bio-based fuels; operate at higher pressures; utilize detonation-based combustion; and introduce hybridized systems to increase efficiency and reduce reliance on fossil fuels. These technological innovations pose challenges to the understanding, modeling, and optimization of novel energy systems. This conference will focus on the advances in optical diagnostics and data analysis that are needed to achieve a fundamental and applied understanding of key thermodynamic and chemical processes occurring within these systems, particularly at severe conditions associated with unconventional (e.g., decarbonized) fuels; extreme transients (e.g., shocks and detonations); high-speed flows (e.g., supersonic combustion or aerothermal flows); limited optical access (e.g., multiphase systems); and interfacial phenomena (e.g., catalysis, deposition, and pyrolysis) over a wide range of temperatures, pressures, chemical compositions, and non-equilibrium states. New diagnostic approaches developed to address these challenging conditions require exploitation of advanced light sources, detection systems, and/or mathematical models to enable new measurement capabilities; careful consideration of sources of uncertainty under relevant conditions; and strategies for improving accuracy, precision, and resolution.