Theoretical and Applied Computational Fluid Mechanics Group
University of Washington
Address: University of Washington
Mechanical Engineering
Box 352600
Seattle, WA 98195
USA
People: Professor Jim Riley
Current Students
Alumni
Recent Student Visitors
Recent Post-Doctoral Fellows
Recent Visiting Faculty
Phone: 206-543-8663 Location: MEB G33, Computational Fluid Dynamics Lab
Pat McGah
pmcgah at u washington edu
Although Pat is originally from Kansas, he has been calling Washington his home for over six years. After completing a degree in mechanical engineering, at Gonzaga University in Spokane, he immediately ventured to the western side of the state for graduate studies. Pat recently completed a Master of Science degree and is continuing his education by pursuing a doctoral degree. When not mastering the challenges of fluid dynamics, Pat has been known to frequent Seattle’s coffee houses, watch GU basketball, play guitar in a rock band, and read philosophy (Nietzsche in particular).
Nietzsche learns about ferrofluids... but then remembers that science is a mobile army of metaphors, metonyms, and anthropomorphisms!
For his master’s thesis, Pat studied under the guidance of Professor James Riley. He used a custom computational fluid dynamics code to simulate the complex behavior of ferromagnetic fluids, or ferrofluids. In particular, he studied unstable and transitioning flows driven by thermo-magnetic and convective instabilities. These flows have possible applications for convective heat transfer in electronic devices. More recently, Pat has begun the research of numerically simulating cardiovascular flows and the fluid-structure interaction between the blood and blood vessels with Professor Alberto Aliseda.
Movies Both the movie and the image below show the temperature contours from a numerical simulation of a magnetically induced thermal instability of a ferrofluid inside a cavity.
- Simulation: .avi file
Kristen M. Thyng
thyngkm at u washington edu
Kristen is working on a numerical model of the Puget Sound, the Pacific Northwest's fjord-like estuary. The modeling of the Sound is being accomplished using Stanford's SUNTANS model, a nonhydrostatic, unstructured, finite volume code that solves the Navier-Stokes equations in three dimensions. In the future, this model of the Puget Sound will be used to simulate the estuary-scale effects of in-stream tidal turbines. This research is being accomplished with the help of Professors James J. Riley and Philip Malte (Mechanical Engineering) and Professor Mitsuhiro Kawase (Oceanography).
Kristen grew up in Seattle and attended Whitman College in Walla Walla, Washington for her undergraduate degree. She graduated in 2005 from Whitman with a BA in physics and a math minor. She moved to Washington, D.C., for most of a year before returning to Seattle for more schooling, this time at the University of Washington. Kristen received a Masters in 2007 in Applied Mathematics , and is continuing her education working toward a PhD in Mechanical Engineering . Kristen enjoys running and tries to get outdoors to hike and trail run when her studies allow.
Research InterestsPresentations
- Computational/geophysical fluid mechanics
- Computational mathematics
- Renewable energy
Teaching
- SIAM UW, 5-29-08: pdf
Websites
- ME 323 - Thermodynamics, Teaching Assistant, Autumn 2007
· Alumni · Saensuk Wetchagarun · Paul Glanville · Steve Clark · Adel Alshayji · Stephen de Bruyn Kops · Chong Cha · Andrew Cook · Satoshi Mitarai · Joseph Nichols · Vebjorn Nilsen · Paiboon Sripakagorn ·
Saensuk’s thesis work is on a numerical study of turbulent two-phase flows. By developing parallel programming on the state-of-the-art supercomputer at the Arctic Region Supercomputer Center (ARSC), she was able to obtain useful information on inertial particle dispersion and inertial particle temperature statistics in both decaying and statistically, stationary isotropic turbulence from high resolution DNS (512^3). She also studied the effects of subgrid turbulent scales on inertial particle dispersion and heat transfer.
Saensuk was born in Bangkok, Thailand. After getting her Bachelor degree in Mechanical Engineering from Chulalongkorn University, she traveled more than 6000 miles to the University of Washington in Seattle where she received her MS and PhD both in Mechanical Engineering in 2003 and 2008, respectively. After finishing her PhD work, she returned to Thailand and now is working as a nuclear engineer at the Thailand Institute of Nuclear Technology (TINT) located in Bangkok. Saensuk loves to bake, though most of the time it doesn't end up quite as good as it should.
Research InterestsPresentations
- Turbulent multiphase flows
- DNS, LES
- Turbulent reacting flows
Teaching
- Saensuk Wetchagarun and James Riley, A numerical study of subgrid-scale effects on solid particle motion and heat transfer in a dilute, particle-laden turbulent flow, 59th Annual Meeting of the Division of Fluid Dynamics, APS meeting, Tampa Bay, Florida, 2006
- Saensuk Wetchagarun and James Riley, The behavior of the temperature of small inertial particles in turbulent flow, 60th Annual Meeting of the Division of Fluid Dynamics, APS meeting, Salt Lake City, Utah, 2007
- ME331 - Introduction to Heat Transfer, Teaching Assistant, Spring 2008
- ME333 - Introduction to Fluid Mechanics, Teaching Assistant, Spring 2007
- ME564 - Mechanical Engineering Analysis I, Teaching Assistant, Autumn 2006, 2007
- ME565 - Mechanical Engineering Analysis II, Teaching Assistant, Winter 2007, 2008
Paul Glanville
pgville at u washington edu
One of those crazy Californians, Paul finished up at UC-Davis and worked for two years at the Sacramento Metro AQMD as an Air Quality Engineer prior to beginning the MSME program at UW. From 2006 to 2008 he worked on a collaborative Washington Technology Center RTD Grant with Greenwood Technologies to reduce Particulate Matter emissions from their Wood-fired furnaces at minimal loss of efficiency, under the direction of Professor John Kramlich and Michael Kirby, P.E. They have pursued an iterative redesign method with CFD modeling, using the FLUENT software package, coupled with pilot testing and emissions sampling. This project was the subject of his master’s thesis.
Paul graduated with his Masters in Mechanical Engineering in June of 2008 and is currently an R&D Engineer at the Gas Technology Institute in Chicago, Illinois, in their Building Energy Efficiency group. During his stay in Seattle, he enjoyed the great outdoors that Puget Sound has to offer, Seattle’s espresso houses, and microbreweries.
· Recent Students Visitors · Marco Belan · Sandro Vitale · Luca Sitzia · Abdellah Berrouk · Sylvain Antheaume ·
· Recent Post-Doctoral Fellows · Olof Grundestam · Oscar Flores ·
Olof Grundestam Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), Stockholm
· Recent Visiting Faculty · Lei Chen ·
· Professor Jim Riley · Current Students · Alumni · Recent Student Visitors · Recent Post-Doctoral Fellows · Recent Visiting Faculty ·
