{"id":651,"date":"2026-07-29T21:25:59","date_gmt":"2026-07-29T21:25:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.tntech.edu\/ppats\/?page_id=651"},"modified":"2026-07-29T21:25:59","modified_gmt":"2026-07-29T21:25:59","slug":"a-cfd-les-framework-for-simulating-contrail-formation-from-ammonia-aviation-fuels","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/sites.tntech.edu\/ppats\/a-cfd-les-framework-for-simulating-contrail-formation-from-ammonia-aviation-fuels\/","title":{"rendered":"A CFD\u2013LES Framework for Simulating Contrail Formation from Ammonia Aviation Fuels"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">by <em>Torge Bohlken, Ph.D. Student, University of South Florida,  <\/em><a href=\"mailto:tbohlken@usf.edu\"><em>tbohlken@usf.edu<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"A CFD\u2013LES Framework for Simulating Contrail Formation from Ammonia Aviation Fuels\" width=\"860\" height=\"484\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/BXnpQJK-q1U?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Contrail formation is one of the most significant non-CO2 climate impacts of aircraft operations, outweighing the radiative forcing from CO2 emissions by almost a factor of two. Understanding differences in microphysical evolution and optical characteristics between contrails produced by traditional and carbon-free aviation fuels is, therefore, crucial to ensuring the successful development of climate-friendly propulsion systems. While ammonia is considered a promising hydrogen-based fuel alternative, its contrail formation and persistence characteristics remain uncertain owing to unique thermodynamic conditions in the aircraft&#8217;s wake. While soot, acting as a primary nucleation site in contrails produced by traditional fuels, is absent in the ammonia-system&#8217;s exhaust, water vapor emissions are significantly increased, and contrail nucleation may still occur on ambient aerosol populations at upper tropospheric levels. To assess the climate impacts of ammonia-powered contrails, a specialized CFD contrail module has been developed within the atmospheric code Meso-NH, based on the microphysical parameterization LIMA (Liquid Ice Multiple Aerosols) and coupled with anelastic and pseudo-incompressible formulations. To reconcile the significantly varying spatial and temporal scales throughout a contrail&#8217;s lifetime, the model couples two temporal LES domains specialized to the jet, vortex, and early-dissipation regimes by superimposing synthetic atmospheric and wake-turbulence fields. The development of this model paves the way to enabling the first detailed simulation-backed comparison of optical and persistence characteristics between contrails produced by ammonia and kerosene.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>by Torge Bohlken, Ph.D. Student, University of South Florida, tbohlken@usf.edu Contrail formation is one of the most significant non-CO2 climate impacts of aircraft operations, outweighing the radiative forcing from CO2 emissions by almost a factor of two. Understanding differences in microphysical evolution and optical characteristics between contrails produced by traditional and carbon-free aviation fuels is, therefore, crucial to ensuring the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":152,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-651","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.tntech.edu\/ppats\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/651","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.tntech.edu\/ppats\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.tntech.edu\/ppats\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.tntech.edu\/ppats\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/152"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.tntech.edu\/ppats\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=651"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sites.tntech.edu\/ppats\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/651\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":652,"href":"https:\/\/sites.tntech.edu\/ppats\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/651\/revisions\/652"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.tntech.edu\/ppats\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=651"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}