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Thermal Fluid Sciences

Purpose

To address engineering issues in the area of heat transfer and fluid dynamics through a coordinated research effort that involves national laboratories, federal agencies and industry as well as the training and education of undergraduate and graduate students.

Capabilities

Heat Transfer and Fluid Mechanics

Deactivation of After-treatment Devices for Lean-Burn Engines

  • Deactivation of zeolite-based SCR catalysts
  • Lube-oil poisoning of diesel oxidation catalysts (DOCs)
  • Accelerating aging of lean NOx traps (LNTs)
  • Accelerated ash loading protocol for diesel particulate filters (DPFs)
  • Impact of biodiesel fuels on after-treatment devices
  • Combustion and emission modeling of HCCI engines using surrogate fuels

Laser Diagnostics and Photonics

  • Laser-based plasma diagnostics: Radar REMPI
  • Biomedical imaging

Micro/Nano-Scale Fluidics and Energy Transport

  • Individual tracking of nanoparticles and vesicles
  • Nanofluidic self-assembly and crystallization
  • Near-field (100nm) characterization using TIRFM and SPRM
  • Development of advanced optical diagnostic techniques
  • Flow and heat transfer in microchannels and micronozzles
  • Nano particle transport

Computational Fluid-Thermal Systems

  • Continuous Galerkin Methods
  • Finite Volume Methods
  • Spectral and pseudo-spectral methods
  • Turbulence Closure Issues
  • Nonlinear Frequency-domain Methods
  • Parallel and High Performance Computation
  • Secondary combustion in turbine

Unsteady Aerodynamics and Aeroelasticity 

  • Flutter and Forced Response in Turbomachinery
  • Rotorcraft Aerodynamics
  • Aerodynamic Design Optimization
  • Computational Fluid Dynamics

Internal Cooling Concepts in Fusion Reactors

  • Cooling of long-stranded copper wire/polymer composite conductors
  • Characterization of oven heat transfer behavior to optimize the heat cycle to cure the polymer

Sensor Development and Inverse Analysis 

  • Inverse heat conduction
  • Parameter estimation
  • Rate based sensors

Hypersonics and Reentry Studies

  • Man-made bodies and meteors
  • Heat flux calculations in arcjets
  • Detecting transition in transient hypersonic flows
  • Supersonic and hypersonic flow characterization