André Bénard

Associate Professor

Department of Mechanical Engineering

Michigan State University

Center brochure

Research Interests: Transport phenomena and materials processing, polymer microstructures, heat transfer, multiphase problems, finite elements.

Research

Current funded research projects:

• Formulation of moment closure models for complex fluids (NSF)
• Experimental and numerical study of the solidification of alloy analogs (NASA, NSF)
• Partnership for International Research and Eduction - Water and Commerce (PIRE - NSF)
• Flame spread over polymeric surfaces (NIST)
• Design and development of underwater biomimetic robotic systems (IRGP)

Other research projects:

• Heat transfer in core-annular flows
• Turbulent multiphase flows
• Oil/water separation - EPA
• Inverse materials design
• Level set methods and their variational formulations

Teaching - Fall 2012

Introduction to Heat Transfer

Graduate students

Mark Gaustad (PhD), Abdul Motin (PhD), Pusheng Zhang (PhD), Andrew Grossman (MSc), Tao Zheng (PhD)

Select publications:

Koppula, K., Muthu, S., Benard, A., and Petty, C.A., "The URAPS Closure for the Normalized Reynolds Stress", Physica Scripta, 2012.

Song, X, Diaz, A.R., Benard, A., and Nicholas, J., "A Simple Model for Topology Optimization of Solid Oxide Fuel Cells", Structural and Multidiscplinary Optimization, to appear, 2012.

Hellum, A., Mukherjee, R., Benard, A., and Hull, A.J., "Modeling and Simulation of the Dynamics of a Submersible Propelled by a Fluttering Fluid-Conveying Tail", J. of Fluids and Structures, to appear, 2012.

Zhang, P., Roberts, R. and Bénard, A., "Computational Guidelines and an Empirical Model for Particle Deposition in Curved Pipes Using an Eulerian-Lagrangian Approach", J. of Aerosol Science, V. 53, pp. 1-20, 2012.