Norbert Peters (engineer)

Norbert Peters (born 1942) is a German mechanical engineer and combustion scientist, known for his contributions to the field of turbulent combustion modeling. He is considered a leading figure in the development of flamelet models and their application to the simulation of combustion processes in engines and gas turbines.

Peters received his Diploma in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Aachen in 1968 and his Dr.-Ing. (Doctor of Engineering) from the same university in 1972. He became a professor at RWTH Aachen University in 1979, where he established a renowned research group in combustion. In 2002, he became Professor of Thermodynamics at the Berlin University of Technology (TU Berlin) until his retirement. He has also held visiting professorships at Stanford University and the University of California, Berkeley.

Peters' research has focused on developing and applying simplified models for turbulent combustion, enabling efficient simulations of complex combustion systems. His work on flamelet models, especially the laminar flamelet concept, revolutionized the way turbulent combustion is understood and modeled. These models allow researchers to represent turbulent flames as an ensemble of laminar flamelets, capturing the important chemical kinetics and transport processes while reducing the computational cost.

He is the author of the widely used textbook Turbulent Combustion, which provides a comprehensive overview of the fundamental principles and modeling techniques in the field. Peters has received numerous awards and honors for his contributions to combustion science, including the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize of the German Research Foundation (DFG) and the Bernard Lewis Gold Medal from the Combustion Institute.