With ICE In His Veins, Mamalis Models New Engine Efficiencies

Go ahead and start your electric engines – but don’t count out good, old internal combustion just yet.

That’s the message at the Advanced Energy Research and Technology Center (AERTC) and, more specifically, inside Stony Brook University’s Department of Mechanical Engineering, where the internal-combustion engine (ICE) is alive and well.

Some of the department’s brightest minds, in fact, are conducting some of its most advanced research, focused not on a future where all-electric motors magically create a carbon-free vehicular nirvana, but where they share the road with super-advanced internal-combustion models that maximize efficiency and minimize harmful emissions.

Such is the purview of Sotirios Mamalis, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering focused on the fundamental phenomena of combustion in engines. But Dr. Mamalis is no gearhead; he can change his own motor oil, thank you, but when it comes to the cutting edge, the good doctor prefers to rev up next-level computational models.

Most of the laboratory’s hands-on grease-monkeying, to this point, had been done by fellow Department of Mechanical Engineering Assistant Professor Benjamin Lawler. More of an experimentalist and modeler, Dr. Lawler has proven to be the perfect match for Dr. Mamalis on their common mission to create new internal-combustion motors boasting higher fuel economy and lower emissions, with applications ranging from large-scale power generation to automotive and even aerospace propulsion.

“Ben complements my expertise in numerical combustion modeling,” notes Dr. Mamalis, a member of the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) and the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME). “We have collaborated on the development of our experimental setups in the lab and all of the research projects funded by the Department of Energy and the automotive industry.”

Unfortunately for SBU, Dr. Lawler is leaving this month for a faculty position at Clemson University. But his longtime collaborator is ready to continue the work, tapping into the vast resources provided not only by the AERTC and Stony Brook, but his membership in the SAE and the ASME, both “premier professional organizations.”

“They bring together engine experts from the industry, academia and national laboratories,” Dr. Mamalis adds. “My participation in their conferences and symposia has enabled me to meet other researchers in this field, which has led to fruitful collaborations on multiple levels.

“Their conferences and symposia also provide the right environment to present our research work.”

There figures to be lots to present. Noting “high-quality research space” and copious interactions with other experts in the energy-research community, Dr. Mamalis described SBU and the AERTC as the perfect place to improve internal-combustion science, with a world-class array of mechanical equipment and a diverse team of postgraduate researchers at the ready.

Only the best will do, with the computer-simulation expert and his myriad teams knee-deep in experimental biofuels and novel engine architectures – key components as the Department of Mechanical Engineering continues its hot pursuit of carbon-neutral transportation systems.

“One goal is to use biofuels from various plant feedstocks in high-efficiency engines,” the assistant professor says. “The greenhouse-gas production from combustion can be completely offset by greenhouse-gas absorption during the cultivation and production of the plants.

“This will enable us to use and develop the existing technologies,” Dr. Mamalis adds. “And that will have multiple economic benefits for the public.”