Fluids & Heat Transfer

The Fluids & Heat Transfer group conducts research on experimental, numerical and theoretical modelling and analysis of fluid dynamics, heat transfer and thermodynamics. Our research activities 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, ranging from large-scale thermal fluid systems (such as data centre thermal/energy management and energy system integration) to micro-scale impinging liquid, air, mist, swirl, pulsating and synthetic jets, two-phase flow, electrohydrodynamics, thermocapillary convection, nucleate boiling heat transfer, nano/micro-scale surface enhancements, thermoelectric energy harvesting and heat pipe technology.

Group Leaders 

Dr. Tony Robinson - Associate Professor and co-founder of spin-off company Nexalus 

Dr. Tim Persoons - Associate Professor (see Persoons Lab) 

Dr. Seamus O'Shaughnessy - Ussher Assistant Professor 

Dr. Amir Pakdel - Assistant Professor and Senior Research Fellow, Science Foundation Ireland (see Pakdel Lab) 

Dr. Michael Gibbons - Assistant Professor and Royal Society-Science Foundation Ireland University Research Fellow (see Gibbons Lab) 

Research Staff and Students

Name Position Telephone Email
Dr. Tony Robinson Associate Professor +353 1 896 3919 arobins@tcd.ie
Dr. Tim Persoons Associate Professor +353 1 896 1936 tim.persoons@tcd.ie
Dr. Seamus O'Shaughnessy Ussher Assistant Professor +353 1 896 1778 oshaugse@tcd.ie
Dr. Amir Pakdel Assistant Professor, Senior Research Fellow +353 1 896 3881 pakdela@tcd.ie
Dr. Michael Gibbons Assistant Professor, Royal Society-Science Foundation Ireland University Research Fellow +353 1 896 2396 michael.gibbons@tcd.ie
Prof. Em. Darina Murray Professor Emeritus   dmurray@tcd.ie
Mr. Gerry Byrne Senior Experimental Officer +353 1 896 3523 gerbyrne@tcd.ie
Dr. Sahan Wasala Postdoctoral Research Fellow   wasalas@tcd.ie
Dr. Sara Battaglioli Postdoctoral Research Fellow   battagls@tcd.ie
Dr. Michel Lebon Postdoctoral Research Fellow   lebonm@tcd.ie
Dr. Evgeny Shatskiy Postdoctoral Research Fellow +353 1 896 2396 shatskie@tcd.ie
Dr. Prasad Lokhande Postdoctoral Research Fellow   lokhandp@tcd.ie
Dr. Mainendra Dewangan Postdoctoral Research Fellow +353 1 896 2396 dewangam@tcd.ie
Mr. Rick Cressall Naughton Ph.D. Fellow (University of Notre Dame, USA) +353 1 896 1034

rcressal@nd.edu,

rcressal@tcd.ie

Mr. Parth Kumavat Postgraduate Research Student +353 1 896 3038 kumavatp@tcd.ie
Ms. Marina Navas Bachiller Postgraduate Research Student (TCD School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences)   navasbam@tcd.ie
Mr. Niall Williams Postgraduate Research Student +353 1 896 3038 nwilliam@tcd.ie
Ms. Paula Murphy Postgraduate Research Student +353 1 896 3038 murphp32@tcd.ie
Mr. Wenguang Zhao Postgraduate Research Student +353 1 896 3038 wzhao@tcd.ie
Mr. Eoin Oude Essink Postgraduate Research Student   eoudeess@tcd.ie
Mr. Younis Osama Abdelsalam Postgraduate Research Student   abdelsay@tcd.ie
Ms. Galina Kennedy Postgraduate Research Student   kennedga@tcd.ie
Alumni and Visiting Researchers
Name Position
Dr. Sajad Alimohammadi Assistant Professor, Technological University Dublin
Dr. Nicolas Baudin Assistant Professor (Maître de Conférences), University of Nantes, France
Dr. Ger McGranaghan Assistant Professor, IT Sligo
Dr. Munir Eraghubi Assistant Professor, Indira Gandhi College of Engineering and Technology, Lybia
Dr. Muhad Rozi Assistant Professor, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Malaysia
Dr. Aimee Byrne Assistant Professor, Technological University Dublin
Dr. Hussam Jouhara Assistant Professor, Brunel University, UK
Dr. Samuel Siedel Assistant Professor, University of Grenoble, France
Dr. Eoin Fanning Aerodynamics Engineer, SSE Renewables
Dr. Alan McGuinn R&D Engineer, Medtronic
Dr. Cian Quinn Postdoctoral Member of Technical Staff, Dyson, UK
Dr. Rudi O'Reilly Meehan Postdoctoral Member of Technical Staff, Nokia Bell Labs Ireland
Dr. Roger Kempers Assistant Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering, York University (formerly: Alcatel-Lucent Wireless)
Dr. Peter De Bock ‎Senior Electronics Cooling Researcher, GE Global Research, Niskayuna, NY
Dr. Arup Kumar Das Assistant Professor, Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee
Dr. Pierre Valiorgue Assistant Professor (Maître de Conférences), Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1
Dr. Brian Donnelly Postdoctoral Member of Technical Staff, Nokia Bell Labs Ireland
Dr. Tadhg O'Donovan Lecturer, School of Engineering & Physical Sciences, Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh

 

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 SA1.1 CMOS high-speed cameras 
  • 1 high-speed PIV system, based on an Oxford Lasers single cavity pulsed diode laser and NAC high-speed cameras 
  • 1 low-speed PIV system, based on a New Wave Solo-120 PIV double-pulsed Nd:YAG laser and PCO PixelFly CCD camera 
  • 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) 
  • Design lab with 20+ Dell Precision workstations 
  • General computing lab with 25+ Dell Optiplex computers