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Titanium dioxide (TiO2) is an important semiconducting metal oxide and is expected to play an important role in future applications related to photonic crystals, energy storage, and photocatalysis. Two aspects regarding the combustion synthesis have been investigated; scale-up in laboratory synthesis and advanced nanoparticle synthesis. Concerning the scale-up issue, a novel curved wall-jet (CWJ) burner was designed for flame synthesis. This was achieved by injecting precursors of TiO2 through a central port into different flames zones that were stabilized by supplying fuel/air mixtures as an annular-inward jet over the curved wall. This provides a rapid mixing of precursors in the reaction zone with hot products. In order to increase the contact surface between the precursor and reactants as well as its residence time within the hot products, we proposed two different modifications. The CWJ burner was modified by adding a poppet valve on top of the central port to deliver the precursor tangentially into the recirculating flow upstream within the recirculation zone. Another modification was made by adopting double-slit curved wall-jet (DS-CWJ) configuration, one for the reacting mixture and the other for the precursor instead of the central port. Particle growth of titanium dioxide (TiO2) nanoparticles and their phases were investigated. Ethylene (C2H4), propane (C3H8), and methane (CH4) were used with varying equivalence ratio and Reynolds number and titanium tetraisopropoxide (TTIP) was the precursor. Flow field and flame structure were quantified using particle image velocimetry (PIV) and OH planar laser-induced fluorescence (PLIF) techniques, respectively. TiO2 nanoparticles were characterized using high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), Raman Spectroscopy, and BET nitrogen adsorption for surface area analysis. The flow field quantified by PIV consisted of a wall-jet region leading to a recirculation zone, an interaction jet region, followed by a merged-jet region. The modified CWJ burner revealed appreciable mixing characteristics between the precursor and combustion gases within these regions, with a slight increase in the axial velocity due to the precursor injection. This led to more uniformity in particle size distribution of the synthesized nanoparticles with the poppet valve (first modification). The double-slit modification improved the uniformity of generated nanoparticles at a very wide range of stable experimental conditions. Images of OH fluorescence showed that flames are tightly attached to the burner tip and TTIP has no influence on these flames structures. The particle size was slightly affected by the operating conditions. The phase of TiO2 nanoparticles was mainly dependent on the equivalence ratio and fuel type, which impact flame height, heat release rate and high temperature residence time of the precursor vapor. For ethylene and methane flames, the anatase content is proportional to the equivalence ratio, whereas it is inversely proportional in the case of propane flames. The anatase content reduced by 8% as we changed Re between 8,000 and 19,000, implying that the Re has a slight effect on the anatase content. The synthesized TiO2 nanoparticles exhibited high crystallinity and the anatase phase was dominant at high equivalence ratios (φ >1.6) for C2H4, and at low equivalence ratios (φ <1.3) for the C3H8 flame. Concerning advanced nanoparticle synthesis, a multiple diffusion burner and flame spray pyrolysis (FSP) were adopted in this study to investigate the effect of doping/coating on TiO2 nanoparticles. The nanoparticles were characterized by the previously mentioned techniques in addition to thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) for carbon content, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) for surface chemistry, ultraviolet-visible spectroscopy (UV-vis) for light absorbance, inductively coupled plasma (ICP) for metal traces, and superconducting quantum interference device (SQUID) for magnetic properties. Results from multi diffusion burner show that doping TiO2 with vanadium changes the phase from anatase to rutile while doping and coating with carbon or SiO2 does not affect the phase. Doping with iron reduces the band gab of TiO2 particles by reducing the conduction band. FSP results show that iron doping changes the valance band of the nanoparticles and enhances their paramagnetic behavior as well as better light absorption than pure titania, which make these particles good candidates for photocatalytic applications.

A dual-axis fluidic thrust vectoring (FTV) system is proposed where the supersonic propulsive jet of an aircraft is exhausted over a scarfed (swept), curved surface to produce flight control moments in both the pitch and yaw axes. This work contributes towards practical dual-axis FTV through expansion of fundamental curved-wall jet (CWJ) understanding, development of the novel Superimposed Characteristics technique for supersonic nozzle design, and performance evaluation of an experimental scarfed curved wall FTV configuration. Previous work has suggested that the use of a sheared exhaust velocity profile improves the attachment of supersonic jets to curved surfaces; however, evidence to support this is limited. To address this, an inviscid numerical CWJ model was developed using the two-dimensional method of characteristics. A major outcome is improved understanding of the effect of exhaust velocity profile on CWJ wave structure and subsequent jet attachment. A sheared velocity exhaust is shown to generate a wave structure that diminishes adverse streamwise pressure gradients within a supersonic curved-wall jet. This reduces the likelihood of boundary layer separation and as a result, a sheared exhaust velocity CWJ is expected to be less readily separated compared to other exhaust velocity profiles. A novel method termed Superimposed Characteristics was developed for the low-order design of supersonic nozzles with rectangular exits. The technique is capable of generating 3D nozzle geometries based on independent exit plane orientation and exhaust velocity distribution requirements. The Superimposed Characteristics method was used to design scarfed rectangular exit nozzles with sheared velocity exhaust profiles. These nozzles were then evaluated using finite volume computational methods and experimental methods. From the analysis, the Superimposed Characteristics method is shown to be valid for preliminary nozzle design. Experimental methods were used to study the on- and off-design attachment qualities of uniform and sheared velocity exhaust jets for a FTV configuration with an external curved wall termination angle of 90 degrees and scarf angle of 30 degrees. Experiments at the on-design nozzle pressure ratio (NPR) of 3.3 demonstrated pitch and yaw jet deflection angles of 78 degrees and 23 degrees respectively for the uniform exhaust velocity CWJ. The sheared exhaust velocity CWJ achieved lower pitch and yaw deflection angles of 34 degrees and 14 degrees respectively at the same on-design NPR. The lower jet deflection angles observed for sheared exhaust velocity jets is inconsistent with the CWJ model prediction of reduced adverse streamwise pressure gradients; however, there was insufficient experimental instrumentation to identify the cause. In the off-design experiments, the uniform exhaust velocity CWJ was observed to detach at an NPR of 3.6, whilst the sheared exhaust velocity CWJ remained attached at NPRs in excess of 4. The capability of sheared exhaust velocity CWJs to remain attached at higher NPRs is consistent with the analytical theory and the CWJ model predictions. An actuation study was carried out to achieve controlled jet detachment using secondary blowing injected normal to the curved wall. Full separation of the wall jets was achieved downstream of the injection point. This provided vectoring angles of more than 20 degrees in pitch and 10 degrees in yaw, exceeding expected vectoring requirements for practical aircraft control. At the on-design NPR, the uniform and sheared exhaust velocity jets required secondary blowing mass flow rates of 2.1% and 3.8% of the primary mass flow respectively to achieve full separation.