 Brief History |
Philip J. Smith,
professor & chair
Department of Chemical Engineering
The University of Utah
University
of Saskatchewan (Regina campus),
1969-71.
Brigham Young University, B.S.,
1975, M.S., 1976, PhD. 1979 (L. D. Smoot).
From 1979 to 1990 Professor Smith taught & conducted research at
Brigham Young University. There, he and his students developed several
combustion models including: 1-DICOG, PCGC-2 & PCGC-3. Since then
he has been at the University of Utah.
From 1990 to 1996 At the University of Utah Prof. Smith developed
JASPER, BANFF
& GLACIER. He emphasized
the application of these reacting flow models to industrial problems
at Reaction Engineering International,
which he help found and where he served as Vice-President from 1990-1Apr98.
He was previously chair of the Department
of Chemical Engineering at The
University of Utah. He chairs the Conflict
of Interest Committee for the University. He leads the fire
simulation efforts in the Center
for Simulation of Accidental Fires and Explostions (CSAFE).
He is one of the founding faculty in the Institute
for Clean and Secure Energy (ICSE).
Professor Smith's research group (combustion and reaction simulations,
CRSim) continues to
work in the area of computational combustion and simulation of
reacting flow processes.
For example, the team has developed three-dimensional
computer simulations of:
- industrial and utility furnaces fired by natural gas or pulverized
coal,
- process heaters for ethylene production,
- flash copper smelters,
- chemical process kilns,
- liquid-liquid reactors,
- premixed chemical reactors,
- accidental fires and explosions.
This research integrates and applys engineering principles, including
fluid dynamics, heat transfer, mass transfer, reaction kinetics
and thermodynamics. These efforts are aimed at producing practical,
verified, state-of-the-art computational tools to make use of current,
fundamental research in reaction engineering, and combustion science.
To this end, the team is currently conducting fundamental research
in:
- numerical methods for solving non-linear systems using inexact
Newton methods,
- turbulent reaction chemistry using manifold methods for detailed
chemistry,
- turbulent dispersion and reaction of particles using both
deterministic moving-Eulerian plume (cloud) models and stochastic
eddy interaction models,
- radiative heat transfer using both discrete ordinates methods
and monte carlo ray-tracing,
- turbulent mixing by large eddy simulations (LES), prescribed
pdf methods, and with 3D direct pdf methods,
- sensitivity analysis and optimization methods for 3D combustion
and reacting flow simulations.
CFD-based reactive flow modeling is a cpu-intensive, large computer
memory problem that also keeps him involved in research issues related
to scientific super-computing and scientific computer visualization.
(He also raises horses and kids in Draper, Utah.) |
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