Research Keyword fluid

His research focuses on turbulence in the atmosphere, particularly that responsible for energy exchanges between the land and ocean, and the overlying atmosphere. Dr. Friehe specializes in geophysical turbulence measurements of wind, temperature, humidity and pressure to parameterize fluxes of heat, water and momentum at the earth's surface. His efforts are aimed at a better understanding of the physics of the marine boundary layer in a wide variety of weather situations. The measurements, which require high fidelity instruments and statistical analysis of large data sets, are usually obtained from specialized experiments on research aircraft, towers, or unique sea-going platforms.

In collaboration with colleagues at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, Woods Hole Institution of Oceanography and other entities around the world, Dr. Friehe currently is involved in two large-scale research endeavors: the Marine Boundary Layer Experiment, a project aimed at understanding the physics of the energy exchanges between the air and ocean; and TOGA/CEPEX, which is focused on analyzing aircraft data from the Tropical Ocean Global Atmosphere/Central Equatorial Pacific Experiment.

Dr. Rangel's current research activities focus on metal solidification in materials processing, droplet spray vaporization and combustion, and fluid mechanics and heat transfer of small particles in suspension.

The overall goals of the first project are to develop models for droplet deposition on flat and uneven surfaces, and to investigate the stability of solid fronts. In the second project, Dr. Rangel is looking at droplet streams and interaction effects, radiation absorption, ignition of droplet clouds and vaporization of binary droplets. The third effort is aimed at analyzing particle motion in unsteady Stokes flows.

Dr. Rangel also is studying the dynamics of aerosols, liquid atomization, and filling liquid acquisition devices in microgravity environments

Miniaturization science (MEMS and NEMS) with emphasis on chemical and biological applications. Current projects include polymer actuators (for drug delivery), C-MEMS and CD based fluidics. Besides miniaturization techniques and materials choices, scaling laws are considered.

Professor Abraham "Abe" Lee's research interest focuses on the development of integrated micro and nano fluidic chip processors for the manipulation and self-assembly of biomolecules and other synthesized nanoparticles. These integrated chip processors will also be designed for the sample preparation of biological fluids to extract the required ingredients for on-chip transducers. Applications for these fluidic processors include programmable precision production of biological reagents for nanomedicine, biomolecular nanosystems that utilize biophysics principles, and platforms to perform controlled studies of molecule-molecule/cell-molecule interactions.

With the research community's recent focus on nanotechnology, nanotransducers with unique functions are being developed for various biological applications. Examples include quantum dots for molecular beacons, synthetic peptides to mimic cellular functions, carbon nanotubes for electronic detection of biomolecules, DNA-based transducers produced by directed self-assembly, and liposomes for targeted drug delivery. Most of these "nanotransducers" are generated by batch mixing of chemicals and reagents, limiting the yield and requiring larger volumes of reagents than necessary. They are also mostly limited to single functions and components research with little or no integration and scale-up. However, to truly unveil biological events such as cell signaling pathways, genetic mutation processes, or the immune responses to pathogens, one must have a method to generate large-scale, multifunctional nano-bio interfaces with readout and control. Professor Lee's research group is developing integrated microfluidic platforms with the goal of generating programmable synthesis of multifunctional nanotransducers.

Current integrated microfluidic devices lack the capability to locally control flow inside the microchannels. It is also difficult to implement fluidic circuits that exploit critical interfacial forces in biological cells with an ultimate goal to function at the complexity of biomolecular interactions. One of our approaches is to develop microfluidic devices based on the principle of "Lorentz" forces to develop "magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) microfluidic systems". This platform can incorporate complex microfluidic components such as pumps, valves, and flow sensors on a general microfabrication platform. It can also enable complex microfluidic circuits with local flow control to be established without the need of external fluidic control manifolds. The MHD microfluidic systems will be implemented with innovative polymeric microfabrication processes.

Other research interests of professor Lee include microtools for real-time, minimally invasive therapy and imaging of the brain and micro devices for distributed surveillance in liquid-based environments.

Dr. Jeon's research focuses on developing new experimental methods and solutions for nanoscale biomedical problems by using soft lithography, microfluidics and surface chemistry. He is interested in applying the engineering approaches and techniques developed in the semiconductor industry to control and manipulate the microenvironment of cells.

Dr. Jeon has several research projects underway that seek to understand the quantitative aspects of cell migration. He currently is investigating the role of different chemicals--for example, chemokines and their antibodies--in the guidance and migration of cancer and immune cells. He also is developing a novel bio-microelectromechanical (bioMEMS) device to generate a precise gradient of biological molecules. Dr. Jeon's microdevice research, which is supported by the National Science Foundation, will help microbiologists understand how mammalian cells respond to complex patterns of stimuli. The work could ultimately be used to develop and test new drugs to stop breast cancer metastasis and speed wound healing.

Dr. LaRue's work primarily concerns the development and assessment of MEMS-based sensors and flow devices using bulk machining processes. His research in this area includes micro-flows (e.g., flows in micro-channels and flow through seals), sensors and optical MEMS devices. Dr. LaRue is developing and/or analyzing MEMS sensors including bi-directional flow sensors, binary concentration sensors and remotely sensed shear-stress sensors, and, in the area of optical MEMS, a bulk-machined Fabry-Perot interferometer.

The overall goal of Dr. LaRue's work in fluid mechanics is to better understand turbulent flows and specifically, mixing in turbulent flows. He and his group are investigating heat in turbulent flows, with the goal of increasing the efficiency of the heat transfer process. Another project concerns the study of the two-way coupling between particles and turbulent flow.

Dr. LaRue also is carrying out investigations into the effect of strain on turbulent flow and heat transfer, augmented heat exchange, particle dispersion in turbulent flows, the effect of free-stream turbulence on jet mixing, similarity in plane wake flows, near-surface measurements and olfactory-evoked potentials.

Dr. Gao's research is in the characterization of hydrometeorology using coupled atmosphere-land surface models. He studies mesocale and hydrological modeling for understanding the changes and variations of climate and hydrology over the global arid and semi-arid regions and searching the applications of model predictions in the regional hydrology and water resources.

Dr. Gao also is working on using satellite remotely sensed information to retrieve physical variables of atmosphere, land surface, and ocean, which include the global precipitation (rainfall and snowfall), clouds, sea surface temperature, and vegetation parameters. Current research focuses on the data assimilation, ensemble forecasts to improve the predictability of mesoscale models.

He is currently doing research for the Center for Hydrology & Remote Sensing (CHRS), HSSOE Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering.

His current research activities include an investigation into fluid/structure interactions, wherein he and his group are developing efficient numerical methods for calculating fluid/structure interactions. Dr. Liu also is leading a study of the multi-grid method for solving the Reynolds-average Navier-Stokes equations with advanced turbulence models, with the goal of developing efficient numerical methods for simulating high Reynolds number flow with complex geometry.

In another project, Dr. Liu is looking at adaptive grid generation, in an effort to develop the method for arbitrary computational domains and couple it with a flow solver for steady and unsteady flow caluculations. He also is investigating unsteady flow in turbomachinery cascades, wherein he is developing numerical methods that can simulate unsteady flow through moving cascade blade rows. Another project is focused on Aerodynamic Optimization of Turbine Blade Rows via CFD and Control Theory, wherein he and his group will explore various two- and three-dimensional shape optimization of compressor and turbine blades.

Dr. Liu's research has applications in the field of aircraft design.