Teaching

The basic principles of thermodynamics are introduced in this course. Concepts of energy and entropy from elementary considerations of the microscopic nature of matter are discussed. The principles are applied in thermodynamic analyses directed towards understanding the performances of engineering systems. Methods and problems cover socially responsible economic generation and utilization of energy in central power generation plants, solar systems, refrigeration devices, and automobile, jet and gas-turbine engines. Prerequisites: Calculus.

This course is concerned with the design analysis of gas-turbine engines. After reviewing essential concepts of thermo- and aerodynamics, we consider a turbofan gas-turbine engine that is representative of a business aircraft. We will first conduct a performance analysis to match the engine design with aircraft performance requirements. This is followed by examining individual engine components, including compressor, combustor, turbines, and nozzles, thereby increase the level of physical description. Aspects of modern engine concepts, environmental impacts, and advanced engine-analysis methods will be discussed. Students will have the opportunity to develop a simulation code to perform a basic design analysis of a turbofan engine. Course Prerequisites: Heat Transfer, Introductory Fluids Engineering, Vector Calculus

This course is designed to provide an introduction to discontinuous Galerkin (DG) methods and related high-order discontinuous solution techniques for solving partial differential equations with application to fluid flows. The course covers mathematical and theoretical concepts of the DG-methods and connections to finite-element and finite-volume methods. Computational aspects on the discretization, stabilization methods, flux-evaluations, and integration techniques will be discussed. Problems and examples will be drawn from advection-reaction-diffusion equations, non-linear Euler and Navier-Stokes systems, and related fluid-dynamics problems. As part of a series of homework assignments and projects, students will develop their own DG-method for solving the compressible flow equations in complex two-dimensional geometries.

Wildfires are unplanned fires that burn in natural areas, such as forests, grasslands, shrublands, and other environments such as wildland-urban interface. While wildfires have been a natural part of our ecosystem, they can threaten livelihood and properties and impact environment and health. The severity and frequency of large wildfires in the United States have increased significantly over the past decades. This is largely attributed to human-caused climate change, increased human population in wildland-urban interface, and changes in fire-management policy. This surge in wildfire activity has resulted in substantial increase in burn area, pollutant and smoke emissions, and associated health effects. This course introduces students to the science of wildland fires, with a specific focus on the physics and quantitative understanding of wildfire behavior, environment impact, and fire management. Starting with the fundamentals of combustion and heat transfer, we will examine effects of wildfire behavior, fire propagation and the transition to extreme-fire events that are driven by atmospheric interaction. The second part of this course is concerned with the modeling and prediction of wildfires. To address deficiencies in the detailed understanding of fire-physics, we will examine recent developments of data-driven methods and their use for fuels characterization, fire detection, fire-risk assessment, and fire behavior predictions. As part of a series of homework assignments and projects, students will have the opportunity to analyze observational data, develop physical models, and examine different wildfire scenarios.

Single particle and multi-particle fluid flow phenomena, mass, momentum and heat transfer, characteristic time and length scales, non-dimensional groups; collection of dispersed-phase elements: instantaneous and averaged descriptions for multiphase flow, Eulerian-Eulerian and Lagrangian-Eulerian statistical representations, mixture theories; models for drag, heat and mass transfer; dilute to dense two-phase flow, granular flows; computer simulation approaches for multiphase flows, emerging research topics. Prerequisites: graduate level fluid mechanics and engineering mathematics, and undergraduate engineering mechanics and thermodynamics.

Basis of turbulent combustion models. Assumption of scale separation between turbulence and combustion, resulting in Reynolds number independence of combustion models. Level-set approach for premixed combustion. Different regimes of premixed turbulent combustion with either kinematic or diffusive flow/chemistry interaction leading to different scaling laws and unified expression for turbulent velocity in both regimes. Models for non-premixed turbulent combustion based on mixture fraction concept. Analytical predictions for flame length of turbulent jets and NOx formation. Partially premixed combustion. Analytical scaling for lift-off heights of lifted diffusion.