The Combustion Institute is an international, non-profit, educational and scientific society. Founded in 1954, CI promotes and disseminates research activities in all areas of combustion science and technology for the advancement of many diverse communities around the world. The International Symposium on Combustion is its world congress and major biennial meeting.
The Combustion Institute directs the publication of two scientific journals, Combustion and Flame, published monthly and the Proceedings of The Combustion Institute, published biennially. Those publications and the affiliated journals, Progress in Energy and Combustion Science, Combustion Science and Technology, Combustion Theory and Modeling, and Applications in Energy and Combustion Science link to all aspects of energy and combustion science both inside and outside the direct international combustion community.
The Combustion Institute also fosters a wide breadth of scientific activities, including regional scientific conferences, summer schools, lecture series, and stipend programs for early researchers. CI also maintains good relations with other scientific societies. Our international community is dedicated to combustion research as a field of eminent societal importance that cuts across many scientific and engineering disciplines. The Combustion Institute’s By-Laws can be accessed here.
The history leading to the establishment of The Combustion Institute dates back to the early 1900s. The need for fundamental understanding of combustion processes became evident in the dawn of major development in automotive engines, fuels, and aviation. Scientists and practitioners in combustion-related fields gathered in 1928 for the first combustion symposium in Swampscott, MA. Affiliated with the American Chemical Society at the time, the venue enabled participants to exchange ideas and share scientific results over a range of topics in combustion science.
A series of national and international combustion symposia that followed solidified and strengthened an active international combustion research community. During the Fifth International Symposium held in 1954 at the University of Pittsburgh, Bernard Lewis and Hoyt Hottel, among others, led the incorporation of The Combustion Institute as a scientific society. Today, The Combustion Institute consists of 35 affiliated sections around the world.
Since its founding, The Combustion Institute has made a profound impact on the advancement of combustion science and the discovery of cleaner and more efficient energy conversion processes. For almost a century, combustion science has been an imperative field of study that cuts across many scientific and engineering disciplines.
As a non-profit, scientific and engineering society, The Combustion Institute promotes research activities in all areas of combustion science and its related fields, including clean energy conversion and propulsion. Dissemination of research findings and education initiatives are conducted through the biennial International Symposium on Combustion, regional and national conferences and meetings, Combustion-Institute Summer-Schools, and the publication of CI’s journals, Combustion and Flame and Proceedings of The Combustion Institute. Affiliated journals include Progress in Energy and Combustion Science, Combustion Science and Technology, Combustion Theory and Modeling, and Applications in Energy and Combustion Science.
The international combustion community currently addresses 13 colloquia categories.
Low-emission combustion technologies including low-carbon and hydrogen-based fuels, MILD combustion, oxy-fuel combustion, chemical looping, NOx and SOx reduction, and CO2 capture strategies.
Gas-phase reaction kinetics including the kinetics of hydrocarbons and oxygenated fuels, formation of gaseous pollutants, elementary reactions, and mechanism generation and reduction.
Diagnostics including the development and application of diagnostic techniques and sensors for the understanding and control of combustion and reacting flow phenomena.
Laminar flames including experiments, theory, and modeling applied to ignition, structure, propagation, extinction, stabilization, dynamics, and instabilities.
Turbulent flames including experiments, theory, and modeling applied to ignition, structure, propagation, extinction, stabilization, dynamics, and instabilities.
Spray, droplet, and supercritical combustion including atomization, combustion of droplets, sprays, and supercritical fluids.
Detonation, explosion, and supersonic combustion including flame acceleration, DDT, rotating- and pulse-detonation engines, constant volume combustion engines, and scramjet-engines.
Solid fuel combustion including fundamental aspects related to pyrolysis, oxidation, gasification, and ash formation from coal, biomass, and wastes, as well as combustion of propellants and metals.
Fire research including fundamental aspects of ignition, burning, spread and suppression of fire, as well as applications to building fire and urban/wildland fire safety.
Propulsion including device-specific aspects of fuels, emissions, injection, stability, and combustion dynamics (e.g. ignition, quenching, thermoacoustics) in reciprocating internal combustion engines, gas turbines (for propulsion and power generation), and rocket engines.
Soot, nanomaterials, and large molecules including the formation, growth, and destruction of soot, PAHs, carbon nanostructures, and other nanoscale materials.
Numerical combustion including discretization and meshing techniques, high-order methods, high performance computing, machine learning, uncertainty quantification, experimental design, and generation of numerical data.
Multi-physics phenomena including assisted combustion (plasmas, electric and magnetic fields), catalysis, coupled heat transfer, micro-channel reactors, fuel cells, fuel synthesis and transformation, and electrolysis.