toshifujiwaraProfessor Toshi Fujiwara, Nagoya University, Japan, passed away on 29 June 2016. A longtime member of The Combustion Institute, Fujiwara was the first scientist to simulate two-dimensional detonation structure numerically. His research showed that detonation phenomena are the coupling between fluid dynamics and chemical reaction, which has greatly influenced the course of combustion research worldwide.

In 1979, Prof. Fujiwara began his post-graduate career as a Research Assistant in the Department of Aeronautics, University of Tokyo, Japan. Two years later, in 1968, Fujiwara took on the position of Assistant Professor in the Department of Aeronautical Engineering, Nagoya University, Japan. He was promoted to Associate Professor in 1971 and then to Professor in 1981. After a long and distinguished career, Prof. Fujiwara was named Professor Emeritus at Nagoya University in 2002.

Prof. Fujiwara devoted much of his remarkable service to advancing combustion research. His research fields included: combustion, fluid dynamics (sub-sonic to hypersonic flows, non-equilibrium fluid dynamics), thermal protection for spacecraft, radiation heat transfer, and plasma flow in electric propulsion systems. He was the first to discover bubble detonations that show how each bubble chain explosion provides sequential detonation. He contributed to the analysis of pulse, and especially rotating detonation engines in the early stage of their worldwide development. He also contributed many features related to detonation phenomena through papers and lecture presentations.

As a meticulous researcher, Prof. Fujiwara authored and co-authored more than 200 papers and three books. He contributed his professional knowledge to governmental organizations to support JAXA/ISAS and the Japan Science Council. He also served on a committee for the University of Tokyo and ISAS, which investigated an accident in the Super-Kamiokande neutrino detector in central Japan.

Prof. Fujiwara’s contributions were recognized multiple times through the bestowal of awards. In 1982, Prof. Fujiwara was honored for his work in Bubble Detonations with the Asahi Scientific Promotion Award, one of Japan’s most valuable awards. In later years, he also received the A.K. Oppenheim Prize from the Institute for the Dynamics of Explosions and Reactive Systems, and the Thermodynamics Award from the Polish Academy of Science.

A highly respected educator, Prof. Fujiwara educated many students, most of whom currently work in universities and related research laboratories. To his colleagues, he was considered one of the top educators in the engineering field in Japan. Prof. Fujiwara was known to have a keen ability to accurately solve technical problems such as an explosions, disasters, and other combustion challenges by setting a partial differential equation and then solving it quickly using a simple perturbation method on a blackboard in front of his audiences. He enjoyed demonstrating scientific solutions to problems and watching people he’d helped look on with surprised faces. He was also regularly delighted in meeting new people, and he entertained visitors whenever they came from all over the world. That quality of his nature has been remembered well by his colleagues.

The Combustion Institute honors Prof. Fujiwara’s accomplishments and the work of scientific leaders who make significant contributions for the advancement of many diverse communities around the world.