Research Interests:

Dr. Ghenai worked on French Army Research project on turbulent premixed combustion during his Ph.D. He used Rayleigh scattering techniques for two-point temperature measurements along an iso mean progress variable contours. The experimental data were used for the validation of the Bray Moss Champion Libby turbulent combustion model in the flamelet regimes. After his Ph.D., He worked as a Post Doc (micro gravity combustion project) at the "CNR", Milan, Italy, Visiting Research Professor at Cornell University (DoD turbulent combustion project) and University of California Los Angeles (NASA micro gravity combustion project). In 2001, He joined the Applied Research Center (ARC) at Florida International University (FIU) in Miami as a Combustion Manager. He set up state of the art Advanced Combustion Laboratory and Supersonic Wind Tunnel Test Facilities. At the ARC, Miami, He worked on supersonic fuel/air mixing project with Air Force Office of Scientific Research, Icing software code validation (LEWICE 2.2) with NASA Glenn, and Non Newtonian fluid mixing and dispersion of airborne particulates matter during decontamination activities projects with the Department of Energy. In 2006, He joined the Mechanical Engineering Department at Florida Atlantic University. He is leading the Combustion, Alternative fuels and Biodiesel Research Programs at FAU. Biodiesel Research: Dr. Ghenai's research team is using different oil feed stocks to produce Biodiesel fuel. The performance and emissions of Diesel engines using biodiesel fuel blends are tested at FAU combustion Laboratory using FAU dynamometer and Gas analyzer. The goal is the evaluation of Biodiesel fuel blends as replacement fuel of traditional transportation fuels. Wind farm Design: Dr. Ghenai is performing CFD analysis of turbulent wakes for multiple wind turbines. Detailed simulations of wind wake conditions will help to improve the load calculation and help to optimize wind farm layout Biomass/ Coal Co-firing: Dr. Ghenia is performing numerical simulation of biomass/coal combustion to reduce the emissions from power plants. Biomass co-firing within the existing infrastructure of pulverized coal utility boilers is viewed as a practical near-term means of encouraging renewable energy while minimizing capital requirements, maintaining the high efficiency of pulverized coal boilers and reducing the emissions. Over the past 12 years, Dr. Ghenai has been involved in various combustion and thermal-fluids projects. Dr. Ghenai has published more than 80 papers in professional journals and proceedings. He is a member of the Combustion Institute, the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics and the National Association of Fire Investigation. He is also a reviewer for the ASME Journal, Combustion and Flame, Combustion Theory and Modeling, Combustion Science and Technology and Experiments in Fluids Journals. His areas of interest are renewable energy, Biodiesel, Biomass, CFD modeling for wind farm design, combustion, thermal-fluids, laser diagnostics, computational fluid dynamics, air pollution, and waste to energy process.