Alan Kastengren is a physicist overseeing the operation of the 7-BM beamline at the Advanced Photon Source at Argonne National Laboratory. For the past 12 years, Dr. Kastengren has focused on developing and applying a range of X-ray diagnostics to probe complex and optically inaccessible flows for a range of applications.

Dr. Kastengren works with a broad range of partners from academia, government labs, and industry to apply X-ray measurements to probe technologically relevant flowfields with high accuracy and fidelity. Two major goals of his work are to provide quantitative data and the ability to use multiple complementary diagnostics. A major thrust of this work has been to understand fuel-air mixing for combustion devices ranging in scale from laboratory burners and test equipment to automotive fuel injection to fuel injection for scramjets and liquid rockets. Such measurements promise to lead to improved performance and decreased emissions from combustion devices at a range of scales.

Dr. Kastengren received his BS degree in mechanical engineering from Iowa State University and his PhD in mechanical engineering from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, with his thesis work focusing on flow visualization of supersonic base flows.