Internships

Bilesh Ladva ’11

A Plasma Spark plug (PSP), like conventional electric spark plugs, produces a source to ignite fuel. However unlike electric spark plugs, the source is essentially a different state of matter, with a larger surface area to ignite fuel. This increased surface area leads to a greater efficiency of an ordinary combustion engine, reducing the volume of fuel used.

The summer project involved two main components; a practical training aspect with the electrical firing circuit-in order to get acquainted to the system. The second, more important component was to produce an effective computer simulation of the firing circuit. This was so that several configurations of circuits could be tested with speed and that anomalies could easily be evaluated and corrected within the circuit. PSP has the potential to be very useful in several different types of combustion engines, with the airplane engine being of particular interest. In addition, in a time of high fuel prices, the need for inventions like PSP can be very beneficial.