Laser diagnostic investigations of flame structure.

Thermal Systems Engineering Research Program

Thermal Systems Engineering is concerned with fundamental studies of heat transfer, phase change and chemical reactions (especially combustion), with applications to power renewable and convetional energy, propulsion, global warming, fire suppression, MEMS and manufacturing. The research at Cornell includes microgravity experiments (laboratory, shuttle and space station), advanced laser diagnostics, and large-scale computations. In addition to the courses listed below, graduate students in Thermal Systems Engineering often take courses in fluid mechanics, applied math, chemistry and computer science.

Faculty

C. Thomas Avedisian: Heat Transfer; Fluid Mechanics; Combustion.
K. Bingham Cady: Nuclear Reaction Physics, Nuclear Engineering, Advanced Nuclear Fuel Cycles
Lance Collins: Turbulence Physics; Combustion; Aerosol Coagulation and Breakup Dynamics; Polymer Drag Reduction
David Erickson: Micro/Nano/Opto-fluidics; Electrokinetics; Thermal analysis for Lab-on-Chip devices; On-chip Single Nucleotide Polymorphism (SNP) Discrimination
Elizabeth Mills Fisher: Combustion; Combustion Chemistry
Frederick C. Gouldin: Combustion; Fluid Dynamics; Air Pollution; Incineration; Spectroscopy
Brian Kirby: Micro- and Nanofluidics Laboratory; Electrokinetic Flow; Colloid and Interface Science; Enzymatic Energy Conversion; Microbioanalytical Systems; Laser-Microfabrication.
Sidney Leibovich: Fluid Dynamics; Wave Propagation; Air-Sea Interactions; Stability Theory; Vortex Dynamics
Michel Y. Louge: Granular and Granular-Fluid Flow; Instrumentation; Experiments in Microgravity; Snow Science.
Stephen B. Pope: Combustion; Fluid Mechanics; Turbulence; Numerical Methods; Aerospace Propulsion; Turbulence and Combustion.
Kenneth E. Torrance: Heat Transfer; Fluid Mechanics; Computer Graphics
Nicholas Zabaras:  Hydrodynamic transport in random heterogeneous media; Inverse problems, Transport phenomena in materials processing, Materials Process Design and Control Laboratory
K. Max Zhang: Environmental nanoparticles characterization and modeling; Near-roadway air pollution; Distributed energy systems; Sustainable transportation systems Energy and the Environment Laboratory

Thermal modeling of liquid- and solid-phase heat transfer in polymeric microsystems.

Graduate Courses

M&AE 5010 Future Energy Systems
M&AE 5240/6240 Physics of Micro- and Nano-Scale Fluid Mechanics
M&AE 5430 Combustion Processes
M&AE 6080 Physics of Fluids
M&AE 6430 Computational Combustion
M&AE 6450 Turbulent Reacting Flows
M&AE 6480 Air Quality and Atmospheric Chemistry
M&AE 6510 Conduction and Radiation Heat Transfer
M&AE 6520 Convection Heat Transfer
M&AE 6560 Nanoscale Energy Transport and Conversion
M&AE 7370 Computational Fluid Mechanics and Heat Transfer