Fluids
You are here
In-cylinder flow conditions in internal combustion engines are inherently stochastic. Reliable and predictive modeling of IC engine performance must include a description of the fluid flow that captures cycle-to-cycle variations, energy dissipation and other aspects of confined flows that are different from well-developed turbulence in open flow situations. Equally, the dynamics of the transient boundary layer flows under the high-pressure and high-temperature conditions in engines is not well understood and is now studied with high-speed, high-resolution imaging diagnostics.
Research in fluids at UM has a wide range of applications including naval technologies, automotive engineering, manufacturing, aircraft technologies, and biological models such as the mechanics of fish swimming. Projects include the development of laser-based and other optical measurement techniques to study reactive and non-reactive flows such as those found in combustion and internal combustion engines; multi-dimensional measurement of velocity during thermoplastic injection molding to understand the influence of processing parameters on final part properties and molding time; the testing of photoacoustic techniques for leak detection and their possible application to the leak testing of automobile parts and other consumer products; and experiments to decrease the turbulent boundary layer skin friction of commercial and military transport ships.
Fluids researchers in ME have strong ties to UM's Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering Program, among other programs. Funding sources include the National Science Foundation, the Office of Naval Research, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the Air Force Office of Scientific Research, the automobile and other commercial industries.
Physics, modeling, control, and computation of turbulent flows; bio-mimetic fluid dynamics | |
Multiphase flows, electrical and radiation based tomography | |
Fluid structure interaction, free-surface flows, acoustics | |
Multiphase flows, computational fluid dynamics | |
Spectral method development, fluid mechanics processes | |
In-cylinder turbulence, mass and energy transfer in transient high-pressure and high-temperature boundary layers |