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Research activities in the Heat Transfer and Phase Change Laboratory emphasize boiling heat transfer, two-phase flows in various geometries including micro-scale flows, and liquid crystal thermography. The faculty also has long-term interests in the areas of highly turbulent convective heat transfer, industrial energy systems, and bio-thermal systems.
Student Members
Our student group includes degree candidates at the Ph.D., M.S., and Honors B.S. levels. Our core group size is typically three to five students. Since 1990, our student members have included holders of fellowships from NSF, NASA, the Texas Space Grant Consortium, the Texaco Graduate Foundation, the Shell Oil Company, and the University of Houston. See the "Graduates" section for a list of thesis and dissertation titles since 1990 and a brief description each student's professional placement immediately following graduation.
Facilities
Extensive facilities are available for research into single-phase and two-phase convection. They include custom-built systems for the study of pool and jet-impingement boiling, flow boiling in millimeter-scale channels, sliding bubble heat transfer, and surface tension driven flows. These systems employ liquid crystal thermography to enable fine-scale full-field surface temperature measurement. A micro-scale imaging system and a lab-on-a-chip two-phase flow facility make possible the study of two-phase flows in micro-scale heat exchangers. Flow-film boiling experiments are performed in a high-speed flow loop powered by a 1500-ampere motor-generator set. A large two-stream wind tunnel with a fully instrumented uniform heat flux test surface and hot-wire anemometer system is available for studies of turbulent convection. General laboratory instrumentation includes several data acquisition systems, two digital color image acquisition and processing systems, two laser systems, and a 5000 frame per second digital camera.
