Fluids & Heat Transfer Research Group
The Fluids & Heat Transfer Group has been conducting research for many years on modelling and analysis of fluid dynamics, heat transfer and thermodynamics. The research activities of the group cover a wide range of interdependent disciplines ranging from energy system technologies, electronics thermal management, manufacturing processes to fundamental research in thermal energy transport and active flow control. The current research focuses on the heat transfer and fluid dynamics of large scale to micro scale impinging liquid, air, mist, swirl, pulsating and synthetic jets, two-phase flow, electrohydrodynamics, thermocapillary convection, nucleate boiling heat transfer and heat pipe technology.
Group Leaders
- Prof. Darina Murray - Professor, Head of Discipline
- Dr. Tony Robinson - Assistant Professor
- Dr. Tim Persoons - Assistant Professor
Selected Research Projects
- The µPower stove generator
- Natural convection from a cluster of heated horizontal cylinders
- Bubble impingement and the mechanisms of heat transfer enhancement
- Heat transfer and fluid flow in impinging mist jets
- Flow structures and dynamics in the wakes of sliding bubbles
- Advanced thermal management of telecoms hardware
- Forced convective drying of a porous cube: Non-intrusive temperature and mass transfer measurements
Past Research Projects
- Electrohydrodynamic enhancement of convective two-phase flow and heat transfer
- Development of an EHD ion-drag micropump for electronics thermal management
- Heat transfer enhancement from a submerged inclined plate due to bubble motion
- Heat transfer characteristics of swirling impinging jets
- Synthetic air jets: A fundamental investigation of convective cooling in thermal management applications
- Development of synthetic miniature jet electronics cooler
- A novel device to control in-situ the thermal gelation and concentration of cell-seeded hydrogels
- Development of advanced thermal interface materials (TIMs)
- The mechanisms of heat transfer during nucleate pool boiling: A numerical study
- Influence of nozzle geometry on the heat transfer and pressure drop from impinging liquid jet arrays for electronics thermal management
- Variable conductance heat pipes
Research Staff and Students
| Name | Position | Tel. | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Prof. Darina Murray | Professor, Head of Discipline | +353 1 896 1129 | dmurray@tcd.ie |
| Dr. Tony Robinson | Assistant Professor | +353 1 896 3919 | arobins@tcd.ie |
| Dr. Tim Persoons | Assistant Professor | +353 1 896 1936 | tim.persoons@tcd.ie |
| Dr. Seamus O'Shaughnessy | Adjunct Professor, Postdoctoral Research Fellow | +353 1 896 1778 | oshaugse@tcd.ie |
| Dr. Roger Kempers | Adjunct Professor | kemperr@tcd.ie | |
| Mr. Gerry Byrne | Experimental Officer | +353 1 896 3523 | gerbyrne@tcd.ie |
| Dr. Rayhaan Farrelly | Postdoctoral Research Fellow | +353 1 896 1778 | farrelra@tcd.ie |
| Dr. Karl James Brown | Postdoctoral Research Fellow | +353 1 896 2396 | kbrown@tcd.ie |
| Dr. Samuel Siedel | Postdoctoral Research Fellow | +353 1 896 2396 | samuel.siedel@tcd.ie |
| Ms. Aimee Byrne | Postgraduate Research Student | +353 1 896 3920 | byrnea36@tcd.ie |
| Mr. David Donoghue | Postgraduate Research Student | +353 1 896 3038 | donoghdb@tcd.ie |
| Mr. Maurice Deasy | Postgraduate Research Student | +353 1 896 3038 | deasym1@tcd.ie |
| Mr. Cian Quinn | Postgraduate Research Student | +353 1 896 3038 | ciquinn@tcd.ie |
| Ms. Kate Smith | Postgraduate Research Student | +353 1 896 3038 | smithk4@tcd.ie |
| Mr. Eoin Fanning | Postgraduate Research Student | +353 1 896 3038 | efanning@tcd.ie |
| Mr. Diarmuid Jackson | Postgraduate Research Student | +353 1 896 2978 | jacksod@tcd.ie |
| Mr. Rudi O' Reilly Meehan | Postgraduate Research Student | +353 1 896 2978 | ruoreill@tcd.ie |
| Mr. Stephen Yates | Postgraduate Research Student | +353 1 896 2978 | yatess@tcd.ie |
| Mr. Michael Gibbons | Postgraduate Research Student | +353 1 896 2978 | migibbon@tcd.ie |
| Mr. Sajad Alimohammadi | Postgraduate Research Student | +353 1 896 1998 | alimohas@tcd.ie |
| Mr. Quentin Pelletier | Postgraduate Research Student | +353 1 896 1998 | pelletiq@tcd.ie |
| Mr. Richard Blythman | Postgraduate Research Student | +353 1 896 2978 | blythmar@tcd.ie |
| Mr. Munir Eraghubi | Postgraduate Research Student | eraghubm@tcd.ie |
Alumni
| Name | Position | |
|---|---|---|
| Dr. Pierre Valiorgue | Assistant Professor (Maître de conférences), Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1 | pierre.valiorgue@gmail.com |
| Dr. Brian Donnelly | Project Engineer, Thermal Management Research Group, Bell Labs Research Ireland | brian.donnelly@alcatel-lucent.com |
| Dr. Thomas Lupton | Research Associate, Department of Aeronautical and Automotive Engineering, Loughborough University | t.l.lupton@lboro.ac.uk |
| Dr. Tadhg O'Donovan | Lecturer, School of Engineering & Physical Sciences, Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh | t.s.o'donovan@hw.ac.uk |
Equipment and Facilities
Major Equipment
- 1 high-speed stereoscopic (3-component) particle image velocimetry (PIV) system, based on a Quantronix DarwinDuo high repetition rate double-pulsed Nd:YLF laser and 2 Photron Fastcam SA1 CMOS high-speed cameras
- 1 high-speed PIV system, based on an Oxford Lasers high repetition rate single cavity pulsed diode laser and NAC high-speed cameras
- 1 low-speed PIV system, based on a New Wave Solo-II PIV double-pulsed Nd:YAG laser and PCO Sensicam CCD camera (shared with FAV research group)
- 1 Two-component Dantec laser Doppler velocimetry (LDV) system (shared with FAV research group)
- Multichannel constant temperature and constant current hot-wire/film anemometry systems, for fast response velocity, turbulence, fluid temperature and surface heat flux measurements
- Several multichannel and modular 16/24-bit data acquisition system
- 1 high-speed FLIR infrared thermal imaging camera (SC6000HS) and rapid data storage system
- 2 FLIR research grade infrared thermal imaging cameras (A40M)
- Several portable FLIR infrared thermal imaging cameras
- Liquid crystal thermography system
- Several full-colour high speed video camera systems
- Digital gas mass flow meters and controllers
- Water cooled dynamic pressure transducers
- Five species exhaust gas analyser
- RTD based temperature calibrator
- IR pyrometers and 2 black-body calibrators
- Highly accurate mass balances
Test Facilities
- Medium and small scale closed-loop water tunnel flow measurement facilities
- Medium and small scale open-loop wind tunnel flow measurement facilities (shared with FAV research group)
- 3 instrumented internal combustion engine dynamometer test stands
- Unsteady combustion test facility
- Monitored high temperature air flow loop (up to 500 °C)
- Heat pipe fabrication and testing facilities
- Bench top hydronic central heating test bed
- 2 two-phase flow and heat transfer test facilities
- 4 jet impingement heat transfer test facilities (liquid/air/mist)
- Tube bundle heat transfer test facility
- Shakers for dynamic testing of model scale and full scale structures and components
- 3D rapid prototype systems
- Micro-machining test bed
Computing & Software
- Computational Fluid Dynamics: Ansys CFX, FLUENT, in-house code
- Particle image velocimetry: Lavision Davis, in-house code
- Computer-aided design and finite element analysis: PTC CREO, Ansys
- Data analysis and simulation: Mathworks Matlab, Simulink
- Data acquisition and control: National Instruments LabView, Arduino
- Access to Trinity Centre for High Performance Computing (see details on www.tchpc.tcd.ie/resources/clusters)
- Dedicated SGI Altix 350 server (32 Itanium CPUs, 128 GB RAM)
- Design lab with 20+ Dell Precision workstations
- General computing lab with 25+ Dell Optiplex computers