I am currently a doctoral candidate at the University of Tennessee Space Institute (UTSI). My work is mainly focused on advanced mean flow models for chemical propulsion systems; specifically liquid, solid, and hybrid rockets.
I earned my Bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering form Notre Dame University (NDU), Lebanon. During my undergraduate studies, I was introduced to turbulence by my advisor, Professor Michel El Hayek. I was immediately fascinated by the wealth of phenomena embedded in turbulent flows and wanted to study turbulence in more depth. In fact, for my undergraduate research/senior project, I implemented a finite volume large eddy simulation code using the Smagorinsky model. The module was added to Dr. Hayek's LICET code and was written in Fortran.
My infatuation with mathematics, fluid dynamics, and computer programming lead me naturally to the area of computational fluid dynamics as a means to invest all my passions.
After graduating from NDU in 2003, I joined the American University of Beirut (AUB) to pursue a Master's degree in mechanical engineering.
- Ph.D. Mechanical & Aerospace
Engineering
University of Tennessee Space Institute
Topic: Advanced mean flow models for chemical propulsion devices - M.E. Mechanical Engineering
American University of Beirut
Graduation with High Distinction
Topic: Parallel computing - B.E. Mechanical Engineering
Notre Dame University
Graduation with High Distinction
Topic: Large eddy simulation
- “Outstanding Graduate Research Assistant” award – UTSI, 2007.
- Crawford Lloyd Fellowship – UTSI, 2007.
- Crawford Lloyd Fellowship – UTSI, 2005.
- Graduate Research Assistantship – UTSI, 2005 - present.
- Graduate Research Assistantship – AUB, 2003-2005.
- Dean’s List – AUB, all semesters.
- “Abd El Aal Litani River Award” – 2003.
- Exemption from tuition fees – NDU, spring 2003.
- 25-50% Scholarship – NDU, all semesters.
- Dean’s List – NDU, all semesters.
I worked with the CFD group under the supervision of Professor Marwan Darwish. My thesis research involved the parallelization of an unstructured CFD solver on PC clusters. I worked extensively with visualization (vtk), object oriented CFD, and parallel computing which exposed me to various operating systems and programming languages.
I graduated from AUB in 2005 and subsequently joined the University of Tennessee Space Institute to pursue my doctoral studies with Professor Joe Majdalani.
In the world of analytical solutions and asymptotics, I was involved in the modeling of mean flows for solid and hybrid rocket motors. These started with the solutions for porous chambers (cylinders and channels) with arbitrary headwall injection and later on evolved to include turbulence effects on the mean flow in porous chambers. These solutions change "shape" depending on the energy content of the flowfield. This constitutes an essential part of my dissertation and I am currently working on improving the latest model to include the contributions from the unsteady field thus completing a two-way coupling framework between the steady and unsteady fields.