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Zellman Warhaft

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  • Zellman Warhaft
  • Dept: Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
  • Title: Professor
  • Address: Room 244 Upson Hall
  • Phone: 607 255-3898
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Biography

After completing his undergraduate education (Melbourne University, 1967), Prof. Warhaft was an engineer at the Radio Progagation Research Division, Australian Post Office Research Laboratories, in Melbourne, where he conducted experiments on the effect of the weather on microwave radio propagation. Then, for six years through 1975, he was a research scientist at The Radio and Space Research Station, Science Research Council, United Kingdom (now The Appleton-Rutherford Laboratory). After earning his doctorate (University College, London, 1975), he became a senior project associate for the Department of Aerospace Engineering at The Pennsylvania State University, where he also worked with the Meteorology Department. Since 1977 he has been at Cornell University.

Research Interests

Zellman Warhaft conducts experiments on the mixing properties of turbulence, which transports heat, momentum and matter many orders of magnitude better than molecular agitation. His interest in this area was stimulated by his work on the effect of weather on microwave radio propagation (Melbourne '67-'69) and on related problems at Ditton Park ('69-'75). He has maintained this contact with geophysics, an area in which turbulent transport is vitally important. In '72, he worked with the air-sea interaction tunnel of the IMST (Marseille). When he was at Penn State ('75-'77) he had close ties to the Meterology Dept. After coming to Cornell, he has spent a sabbatical at KNMI de Bilt (The Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute). His present interests are in the fundamentals of the small scale structure of the scalar and velocity fields in high Reynolds number turbulent flows and the effects of turbulence on the formation of raindrops in clouds. Professor Warhaft is also concerned with the social and environmental aspects of engineering and (apart from his more formal teaching obligations) teaches a course on this topic called "Components and Systems: Engineering in a Social Context".  He is affiliated with the Science and Technology Studies Department, with the Peace Studies Program and with the Atkinson Center for a sustainable future at Cornell.  He was Associate Dean for Diversity in the Engineering College from 2003 - 2007 and is presently addressing faculty diversity across the university.

Selected Publications

  • Gerashenko, S., G. Good, Zellman Warhaft. 2011. "Entrainment and mixing of water droplets across a shearless turbulent interface with and without gravitational effects." Journal of Fluid Mechanics 668: 293-303.
  • Siebert, H., S. Gerashchenko, A. Lehmann, Gylfason, Lance Collins, Zellman Warhaft. 2010. "Towards the understanding the role of turbulence on droplets in clouds: In situ and laboratory measurements, and numerical modeling." Atmospheric Research 97: 426-437.
  • Sharp, N. S., S. Neuscamman, Zellman Warhaft. 2009. "Effects of large-scale free stream turbulence on a turbulent boundary layer." Physics of Fluids 21 (9).
  • Warhaft, Zellman. 2009. "Laboratory studies of droplets in turbulence: towards understanding the formation of clouds." Fluid Dynamics Research 41 (1).
  • Good, G., Zellman Warhaft. 2011. "On the probability distribution function of the velocity field and its derivative in multi-scale turbulence." Physics of Fluids 23 (098106).

Education

  • BE (Electrical Engineering), University of Melbourne, 1967
  • Ph D (Electrical Engineering), University of London, 1975