Thermal and Fluid Systems Laboratory

The Thermo-fluids Laboratory aims at developing fundamental and applied research broadly centered on the areas of fluid/thermal sciences, dynamical systems, optimization, soft computing, electronic cooling, and thermal control to solve pressing issues related to energy efficiency and sustainable energy systems. The work perfomed in the lab combines analytical, numerical and experimental approaches to carry out interdisciplinary research to develop technologies that enable designing more efficient energy-conversion devices thus offering possible solutions to reduce environmental impact from current usage and sources of energy. The lab space is divided into two sub-facilities. (1) A computer-cluster-based fully furnished student office for six students, which includes high-end HP Z620 graphical workstations with Intel Xeon 6-core processors, linked to a Beowulf Linux-based computer system with 14 quad-core Xeon processors, with printing and poster-developing capabilities. Matlab, COMSOL Multiphysics ans Tecplot software, along with in-house F77-based codes and graphical and CAD software, are used for general and comprehensive CFD calculations. (2) An experimental space houses a number of equipment, including a natural convection loop, a flow visualization with a particle image velocimetry system, a heat exchanger experimental facility and a fully instrumented sub-scale 1.1 m x 0.92 m x 1.2 m building test facility, all interfaced with personal computers for experimental analysis and control. The overarching goal is to offer potential solutions to reduce environmental impact and minimize energy consumption toward developing sustainable urban settings. The list of the existing equipment is included in the equipment section.

Current research interests include (i) Simulation and control of thermal systems; (ii) Soft computing techniques; (iii) System and process optimization; (iv) Heat and fluid flow data analysis; (v) Nonlinear dynamical systems, (vi) Analytical and numberical methods for PDEs; (vii) Micro-scale fluid flow and heat transfer; (iix) Electronic cooling; geophysical flows; (ix) Biologitcal and biologically-inspired systems. 

Heat Exchange Facility

Can be used for efficient heat transferring from one medium to another.

Particle Image-Velocimetry

Can be used for efficiently obtaining instantaneous measurements and related properties in fluids. 

One 14-node with 1-head-node, 2 Intel quad-core Xeon Beowulf Linux server

(2.4GHz, 32MB Cache, 6x1GB DDR3, 500GB/7200RPM  16MB Cache HD)

Four HP-Z620 six-core workstations (2.0 GHz, 8 GB RAM), 1 GB Graphic Card

Two HP-Z800 six-core workstations (2.53 GHz, 22 GB RAM), 1 GB Graphic Card

One Fully-instrumented computer-driven concentric-tube heat exchanger experimental test-bed

One Fully-instrumented computer-driven 1.1 m x 0.92 m x 1.2 m building test facility (In-house)

A fully functional optical table

One Flow visualization and PIV system (Interactive Flow Studies)