Tommy Powell Email and Phone Number

I’m currently a Senior Performance Engineer at LiquidPiston. Prior to that, I worked on fuels and advanced combustion research at Oak Ridge National Lab as a postdoc. I received my doctorate in automotive engineering from Clemson University while working on thermal barrier coatings (TBCs) for gasoline compression ignition (GCI) engines. My research looked into manipulating the wall temperature dynamics using thermal barrier coatings to reduce combustion heat transfer and affect both the rate and completeness of kinetically-driven GCI combustion. This research took a detailed look into developing durable, low conductivity “temperature swing” TBCs and investigated fuel-coating interactions that resulted. Broadly, my research interests are in GCI, TBCs, engine heat transfer, and fuels. I have experience with building, operating, and designing experiments for engine test cells and am also skilled with SolidWorks, GT-Power, Matlab, Simulink, and Finite-Element Methods.