New Insights on Liquid Impact and Dispersion

Thursday, January 21, 2010 - 10:00 p.m. to Friday, January 22, 2010 - 10:55 p.m.
Environmental Engineering Seminar Series

Featuring Scott C. James, Ph.D.
Principal Member of the Technical Staff
Thermal/Fluid Science & Engineering
Sandia National Laboratories

Location:  Engineering Hall 2430 Colloquia Room
Free and open to the public

Abstract:
Sandia National Laboratories is interested in high speed, large liquid slug impact and dispersion in support of vulnerability assessment for fuel ignition and combustion. There is no previous research done in this area because prior work has focused on relatively small-Weber-number (We < 104) impacts meant for regimes related to processes such as ink jet printing, material coatings, and internal combustion. Our experimental and model simulation results for high Weber number impacts (up to 108) have provided valuable information on high-speed fuel impact and dispersion as well as new insights for droplet impacts for all regimes. This new insight has also led the research to re-visit and include applications regarding processes for low-Weber-number droplet impact.

Sandia is a Department of Energy National Nuclear Security Administration laboratory with strong research connections to the Department of Homeland Security. The laboratory has robust programs in materials science, combustion, reactive flow and transport, stockpile stewardship, and alternative energy to name a few. I will be available after the presentation to discuss Sandia’s aggressive hiring campaign planned for this year and next.

About the Speaker:
Scott James received his B.S. and M.S. in mechanical engineering from UC San Diego with emphases in fluid mechanics and numerical methods. In 2001, he graduated from UC Irvine with a doctorate in engineering with emphasis on solving environmental flow and transport problems. Shortly thereafter, he joined Sandia National Laboratories’ Performance/Risk Assessment and Decision Analysis Department in Carlsbad, New Mexico, in charge of certifying the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, the only operating transuranic nuclear waste repository in the world. Next, he joined the Geohydrology Department in Albuquerque and contributed significantly to the Yucca Mountain Project and International Programs. Scott is currently Acting Manager of the Thermal/Fluid Science & Engineering Department at Sandia Labs in Livermore, California, where he continues to work on a wide variety of reactive flow and transport modeling problems. Recently, he has focused on environmental impacts of hydrokinetic energy device emplacement in coastal regions and modeling open-channel flow systems in an attempt to optimize algae growth for biofuel production.