His current research focuses on metal combustion as it relates to the military and aerospace industries. He and MechSE colleague Herman Krier are working together to develop a better understanding of how aluminum burns. (Aluminum constitutes about 20 percent of the fuel in solid rocket engines used on the Space Shuttle.) They are also investigating aluminum hydride, an alternative to aluminum that may produce better range and performance, but may also have undesirable features.

His research on metal combustion makes use of the shock tube facility developed by Professor Krier and Professor Rodney Burton of the Department of Aerospace Engineering. The shock tube provides the only way to conduct controlled experiments with metal particles, experiments that previously were not possible. Using the shock tube facility, Professors Glumac and Krier are able to test the validity of existing hypotheses about metal combustion. One theory suggested that aluminum always burns faster in water vapor than in carbon dioxide. The controlled environment of the shock tube provided a way for them to test this theory by directly comparing oxidation rates of aluminum in water vapor, carbon dioxide and oxygen. They learned that carbon dioxide is an increasingly important oxidizer for aluminum, particularly with small particle diameters. Another theory predicted that at small particle sizes, aluminum converts from diffusion limited combustion to kinetic limited combustion. The particle size at which that transition occurs had been unknown until experiments by Professors Glumac and Krier revealed that diffusion limited combustion begins to break down at particle sizes of 10 microns and smaller.