Writing is where I publish more finished essays, technical articles, and longer reflections that have been shaped into a clearer form. It differs from Notes in being more deliberate and complete, and it is for readers who want a more sustained argument, explanation, or point of view.
Detailed reaction mechanisms are physically accurate but computationally intractable in engineering simulation. This is the story of two methods — tabulated chemistry and machine learning tabulation — that recover that accuracy at engineering speeds, and what they enable for engine design and emissions prediction.
Series: energetic-materials-research
Before you can model or predict the combustion of an energetic material, you have to know what actually happens at the molecular level when it starts to break down. This is the story of using quantum mechanics calculations to answer that question for RDX and HMX — two of the most important explosives and propellant ingredients in use today.
Series: energetic-materials-research
Starting from quantum mechanics calculations of individual bond-breaking events and ending with a model that correctly predicts burn rates across pressures — this is the story of assembling a first-principles combustion model for HMX, and what it took to make the pieces fit together.
Series: combustion-foundations
A fully self-contained first-principles walkthrough of stiffness, implicit integration, Newton solves, GMRES, and structure-aware preconditioning for chemistry ODE systems — with an interactive lab embedded to explore the solver data directly.