Dan Fries

Biography

Dan moved from Germany to the US in 2015 and received his PhD in Aerospace Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology in 2020. His dissertation investigated the influence of gas properties on jet mixing in a supersonic crossflow and the application of laser ignition and jet staging to enhance chemical reactions. He conducted his experimental studies at the Ben T. Zinn Combustion Lab, under Profs. Menon Suresh and Devesh Ranjan. At UT Austin, he currently works within the PSAAP III project on the experimental side with Philip Varghese and Noel Clemens. His primary responsibility is the experimental exploration and characterization of plasma torch and glow discharge experiments.

Dan's primary research interests are experimental studies in high-enthalpy reacting flows, optical diagnostics, propulsion technology, and mathematical and computational methods to leverage experimental techniques. During his PhD, he studied turbulent mixing, combustion and ignition in subsonic and supersonic flows. In his dissertation, specifically, he focused on the mixing and ignition processes of jets in a supersonic crossflow using schlieren, Particle Image Velocimetry and Laser Induced Fluorescence. Currently, he is directly working with a 60 kW inductively coupled plasma torch and supporting the work of two PhD students on a cold-flow analogue of the torch and a glow discharge system. In a collaboration with Sandia National Labs, he is setting up a Coherent Anti-Stokes Raman Scattering system for measurements in the plasma torch plume.