Department of Mechanical Engineering

Michigan State University

 

Dr. Indrek Sven Wichman Professor of Mechanical Engineering Phone:   (517) 353-9180  FAX:       (517) 355-1750  Email: wichman@egr.msu.edu  Mailing Address: Department of Mechanical Engineering, Room2328-F, Engineering Building, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48824-1226 USA.

"Oh duty, why hast thou not the visage of a sweetie, or a cutie?" (Some English wag)
"Well, my fine American friends, now that you are independent how do you now like taxation WITH representation?" (Another English wag)

STATEMENT OF TEACHING PHILOSOPHY and RESEARCH PHILOSOPHY

PUBLICATIONS

I. S. WICHMAN EDUCATION and PERSONAL
 
ME 800

RESEARCH INTERESTS

• Combustion and Flame Studies Related to Fire and Theoretical Combustion
• Analytical Modeling (Fire, Ignition, Quenching, Flame Spread, Instabilities)
• Computational Modeling (Flame Spread, Triple Flames, Instabilities, Solid Pyrolysis, Microgravity Flames)
• Experimentation (MSU Fire Tunnel, Thermal Property Measurement, Flames in Small Enclosed Spaces (micro flames), Burner Flame Attachment)

• NASA Microgravity Combustion: "Investigation of Diffusion Flame Tip Instability in Microgravity." January 1, 2004-January 1, 2005.
• MSU: "Plasma/Combustion Burner." January 1, 2004, December 31, 2004 (will be renewed).
• NSF: Flamelet proposal (to be submitted Fall, 2004).
  

• Ph.D.: Two students (Yang Long; Carlos Maidana).
• M.S.: Five students (Stefanus Tanaya, Karin Aditjandra, Chandra Romel, Kaci Adkins, Kimberly Sarbo)
• Undergraduates: Lab assistant (Bryan Burkhart).

• None, presently.

     The graduate students I seek are persons with an interest in fundamental research. Students should have excellent mathematical preparation and physical understanding, for combustion is a complicated subject joining many sub disciplines. I appreciate hard work and dedication to research and scholarly pursuits generally. I value consistently applied effort. Nevertheless, theoretical research requires intense concentration, and one good day's insight and calculation after many months of futility may produce lasting, valuable results. Numerical research requires consistent effort and running of numerous numerical cases (patience, patience). Physical insight is needed to describe that the simulations are saying. Experiment requires large amounts of time for setup and preparatory work, and physical insight is needed to describe results. No matter what the specialization (theory, numerics, experiment), I seek students whose absolute first priority is a love of learning. This should also be their second and third priorities, before eating, sleeping and recreation!

     In general, a Ph. D. student's thesis should produce several peer reviewed publications in good journals, usually no fewer than four, not including conference publications. An M.S. thesis should produce at least one such publication.

 
 

Revised: March 5, 2002

URL: www.egr.msu.edu/ME/htdocs/faculty/wichman