Combustion, Fire, and Plasma Systems

PROGRAM GUIDELINES

Apply to PD 10-1407 as follows:

For full proposals submitted via FastLane: standard Grant Proposal Guidelines apply.
For full proposals submitted via Grants.gov: NSF Grants.gov Application Guide; A Guide for the Preparation and Submission of NSF Applications via Grants.gov Guidelines apply (Note: The NSF Grants.gov Application Guide is available on the Grants.gov website and on the NSF website at: http://www.nsf.gov/publications/pub_summ.jsp?ods_key=grantsgovguide)

Please be advised that the NSF Proposal & Award Policies & Procedures Guide (PAPPG) includes revised guidelines to implement the mentoring provisions of the America COMPETES Act (ACA) (Pub. L. No. 110-69, Aug. 9, 2007.) As specified in the ACA, each proposal that requests funding to support postdoctoral researchers must include a description of the mentoring activities that will be provided for such individuals. Proposals that do not comply with this requirement will be returned without review (see the PAPP Guide Part I: Grant Proposal Guide Chapter II for further information about the implementation of this new requirement).

DUE DATES

Full Proposal Window:  February 1, 2010 - March 3, 2010

Full Proposal Window:  August 15, 2010 - September 23, 2010

SYNOPSIS

The Combustion, Fire, and Plasma Systems program supports fundamental research and education relevant to these subjects.  Among the broader societal impacts of the program are cleaner global and local environments, enhanced public safety, improved energy and homeland security, useful new materials, and more efficient manufacturing.

This program is not an applied research program, but rather it provides broad, basic knowledge that can be used by others in development of systems for combustion and plasma applications and for mitigating the effects of fire.  Broad-based tools - - computational, experimental, or diagnostic - - that can be applied to a variety of problems in combustion, fires, and/or plasmas are major products of this endeavor.  Note that the plasma science is generally in support of plasma processing; atmospheric-science or fusion-energy plasmas are funded elsewhere.

Areas of interest include:

• Gas, liquid, and solid combustion in premixed, non-premixed, partially premixed, or flow-reactor configurations

• Laminar and turbulent combustion over a range of temperatures and pressures and length scales

• Structure and dynamics of flames and plasmas

• The science needed to enable use of domestically generated alternate fuels

• Improved understanding of flame spread, inhibition, and suppression

• Atmospheric-pressure plasmas and other emerging plasma-processing methods relevant to biotechnology, material synthesis, and other industrial applications

• Mitigation of combustion-generated pollution

• Basic climate-change technology research directly related to combustion, fire, or plasma systems

• Development of diagnostic tools and the needed underlying science

• Projects that intersect nanotechnology and combustion, fire, or plasma-processing science

• Projects that combine combustion and plasma science or contribute to both fields of research are encouraged

• Projects relevant to combustion, fires, or plasma processing that contribute to the emerging cyberinfrastructure for scientific information technology

Proposals should address the novelty of the concept being proposed, compared to previous work in the field.  Also, it is important to address why the novelty might be important in terms of engineering science, as well as to also project the potential impact on society and /or industry of success in the research.  The information requested in this paragraph should be included, as a minimum, in the Project Summary of each proposal.

The duration of unsolicited awards is generally one to three years.  The average annual award size for the program is $90,000.  Small equipment proposals of less than $100,000 will also be considered and may be submitted during these windows.  Any proposal received outside the announced dates will be returned without review.

The duration of CAREER awards is five years.  The submission deadline for Engineering CAREER proposals is in July every year. Please see the following URL for more information: http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2008/nsf08051/nsf08051.jsp.

Proposals for Conferences, Workshops, and Supplements may be submitted at any time, but must be discussed with the program director before submission.

Grants for Rapid Response Research (RAPID) and EArly-concept Grants for Exploratory Research (EAGER) replace the SGER program.  Please note that proposals of these types must be discussed with the program director before submission.  Further details are available in the PAPPG download, available below. 

Please refer to the Proposal and Award Policies and Procedures Guide (PAPPG), January 2010, (NSF 10-1) when you prepare your proposal.  The PAPPG is available for download at:  http://www.nsf.gov/publications/pub_summ.jsp?ods_key=nsf101

THIS PROGRAM IS PART OF

Transport and Thermal Fluids Phenomena

What Has Been Funded (Recent Awards Made Through This Program, with Abstracts)