-Current and past research areas include airbreathing, rocket, and advanced propulsion, including nuclear, and the applied and fundamental physics and chemistry of combustion, including high temperature material properties.
Some recent topics investigated or currently being investigated by Prof. Bruno and his staff at the DMA include: Turbulent Combustion, Gas Turbine combustion, Nuclear Propulsion and its materials, Tether Propulsion, Fuel Reforming, RBCC and CRJ-SCRJ Propulsion, Catalytic Combustion, Catalytic Recombination over TPS, and hot corrosion, and technologies related to hypersonic vehicles (MHD, plasma energy bypass, drag reduction, catalytic reforming and hydrocarbon cracking,…), Supercritical LOX/LHC combustion and related issues (chamber and nozzle cooling, injection,…), Metal Combustion, Microrockets for satellite applications, and Combustion for high performance, low-NOx liquid-fueled gas turbines, and Propulsion for two of the Italian Lunar missions planned by ASI in 2011. He has been Combustion Group Leader from 1991 to 1998 at the CRS4 Research Center (Sardinia, Italy), building his group from zero to a peak of thirteen researchers, procuring funds and managing personnel. This interdisciplinary group has worked under contract from Italian and European organizations in the areas of turbulent combustion modeling, gas turbine combustion, heterogeneous catalysis, re-entry, hypersonics and materials mesoscale physics, including CFD software development for these areas. In particular, he has led as coordinator two EU projects under the EU ESPRIT and BRITE Programs, managing EU teams to 1. develop complex, 3-D, reactive, time-dependent Navier-Stokes SW to simulate unsteady combustion in gas turbines, and 2. predict ignition delays of hydrocarbon fuels in high pressure aeroengine combustors. The first project was a 27 man-year, 3.5-year effort successfully completed in 1998. The second is still continuing under different names (“LowNOx” Project). Currently his team is participating in three EU aeroengine combustion and propulsion projects, LAPCAT, TLC and TIMECOP. He is also developing advanced energy extraction and propulsion concepts utilizing HTSC (superconducting) technology, alpha particles and neutron emission, MHD, electromagnetic drag reduction and kerosene fuel reforming. These are technologies under the umbrella name of “AJAX”.
He was a partner in the ESA-ESTEC “Propulsion 2000” program with FIAT-Avio, the Russian Keldysh Research Center, the German DLR and EDOTEK, to assess feasibility and merits of future propulsion concepts, including tethers, micro-thrusters, hybrid rockets, LOX/LHC rockets, nuclear thermal electric and superconductivity technologies. Results from this project will be published in 2007 or 2008 by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA). He was a member of the Italian Space Agency (ASI) team investigating the feasibility of the fission fragments Nuclear Engine concept developed by the 1984 Nobel Prize C. Rubbia for deep space missions. In this team he has lead (1999-2002) the preliminary conceptual design of the future engine Test Facility. He has been working until 2004 with ESA industry partners at a comparison between NEP and SEP. A book on the state of the art of nuclear space propulsion will be published by AIAA with Prof. Bruno as author and general editor. Prof. Bruno is a member of: 1. the International Space Technology Symposium (ISTS) Foreign Organizing Committee (Japan), the largest space conference in the Pacific area; 2. the Steering Committee of the IAA Advanced Propulsion Working Group, an industrial/GO forum advocating propulsion as the key to space access, and leads the IAA Commission 3 WG #3 that has just issued an IAA White Paper on Space Nuclear Power and Propulsion; 3. the NATO-RTO AVT 10 SCRJ Group on military SCRJ; two AIAA Technical Committees, i.e., 4. the HyTASP TC on hypersonics and 5. the Propellants and Combustion TC on engine combustion and fuels. He has organized all thirteen “Propellants and Combustion” Sessions of the 2003 AIAA Joint Propulsion Conference; 6. the IAF Propulsion Committee, being also General Chair of the annual IAF Propulsion Symposium from 2000 to 2005; 7. the Organization Committee of the International Symposium on Shock Waves; 8. the International Flame Research Foundation (IFRF); 9. The International Academy of Astronautics (IAA); 10. Technical/Advisory Committee of CANEUS, that organizes the “International Conferences on Micro- and Nano-technologies for Aerospace and Terrestrial Applications”; 11. The Physical Sciences Advisory Group (PSAG) of ESA. He is an Expert/Evaluator of EU Research Framework Programme proposals since 1999. Prof. Bruno is a reviewer for: the Combustion Institute since 1994, selecting papers for the bi-annual International Symposia; the AIAA J. of Thermophysics and Heat and Mass Transfer; the AIAA J. of Propulsion and Power; Combustion Science and Technology; Combustion and Flame; is on the Editorial Board of the J. of Thermophysics and Aeromechanics. Since March 2004 is a member of the Advisory Board of the AIAA Education Textbooks Series. Prof. Bruno has consulted/is consulting for: the National Aerospace Laboratories (now JAXA) of Japan; the Institute of Space and Astronautical Sciences (ISAS) also of Japan; ESA-ESTEC, about 1. reusable TPS and catalytic effects 2. Future Propulsion, under the “Space2020” series of workshops, and for the “Propulsion 2000” Project; 3. Microgravity physics and chemistry, reviewing and selecting ESA and NASA proposals; and 4. Combustion; Ansaldo of Italy, about use of CIRA’s SCIROCCO facility; FIAT-Avio (now AVIO), for future reusable LOX/HC rocket engines and SCRJ; the Italian National Renewable and Nuclear Energy Laboratories (ENEA), for turbulent combustion; Alstom Corporate Research Center, about new high temperature-air gas turbines; and Thales-Alenia Space, about ESA mission architectures. Prof. Bruno has been or is an invited lecturer: three times at the Von Karman Institute, in hypersonics, real gas effects modeling and MHD; at the Center for High Speed Propulsion (NASA-Langley and Princeton University); at ESA-ESTEC, in real gas thermophysics; at the USAF Academy, in re-entry physics and modeling; at CERFACS, in combustion modeling; at the EU-USA Hypersonic Workshops, on high temperature physics and re-entry; at three Advanced Study Institutes (NATO), in catalysis and combustion; at the Paul Scherrer Institute, Switzerland, on catalytic combustion; and at many EU and US universities and companies.
He has been three times an invited scientist under the USAF WOS Program, visiting facilities and giving seminars, and a Visiting Professor at Princeton University. He has sat in EU and US PhD/Tenure panels, to review NATO proposals and to evaluate Associate Professors for tenure (at Notre Dame University, University of Minnesota and Chalmers Institute of Technology).
He has also refereed two scientific textbook projects for Cambridge University Press, both dealing with fluid dynamics, combustion and thermophysics.
His book with Prof. P.A.Czysz (“Future Spacecraft Propulsion Systems”) has been published by Springer-Praxis of London in January 2006. Two more books are being completed in 2007, “Propulsion 2000”, for the AIAA “Progress in Aeronautics and Astronautics” series, and “Nuclear Space Power and Propulsion”, also for the same series. 1983-1988: CNR-CNPM, Milan. Works in airbreathing propulsion, solid propellants combustion, and in surface catalysis and molecular transport properties modeling for ESA-ESTEC under the HERMES re-entry program. 1982-1983: Consultant and Chief Scientist, Catalytic Energy Corp., Princeton, NJ. Works in catalytic combustion for application to internal combustion engines, gas turbines and afterburners, under contract from NSF. Obtains a US Patent in catalytic combustion. 1981-1982: Sr. Scientist, Princeton Combustion Research Labs, Princeton, NJ. Works in catalytic and solid propellants combustion, under contract from USAF/OSR. During this period discovers experimentally a ‘hybrid’ catalytic combustion mode lowering pressure drop. 1977-1981: Research Staff, Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Department, Princeton University. Leads an experimental and simulation program in catalytic combustion under contract from 1. USAF, for application to gas turbines and afterburners, 2. NASA-Lewis, for application to advanced combustors using H2, and 3. US DOE, for application to low BTU fuels in industrial gas turbines. Total funding was $ 350,000/yr. 1975-1977: Sr. Physicist, Physics International Co., San Leandro, CA. Works in SI Internal Combustion Engines; leads a $ 750,000/yr feasibility study in High Speed cryogenic liquid jets for tokamaks refueling; works in electrostatic atomization of liquid HC. Education: PhD, Princeton University, 1977; MA, Princeton University, 1971. PhD thesis on modeling LRE combustion instability in the LOX/kerosene Saturn F-1 engine. Master degree in Mechanical Engineering, U. of Rome, 1965, on tip to tail SCRJ design. Membership: AIAA (Associate Fellow); IAA; The Combustion Institute; Societé des Mathèmatiques Appliquèes et Industrielles; The Gas Turbine Society of Japan; The Planetary Society; the International Flame Research Foundation; the Hypersonics Society.Main works published.... |
