Xiaojun Yan

COLLABORATION IN BASIC SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING (COBASE)

Xiaojun (Terry) Yan and Igor Shevchuk of Ukraine worked together at the Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, Department of Mechanical Engineering for two weeks in July 1999. The purpose of this visit was to discuss the specific research project the two scientists wanted to pursue. They decided to focus their research on the heat transfer and fluid flow of a pre-swirled impinging jet on a rotating disk. The problem posed by such a flow system presents both fundamental and practical significance. The three- dimensional flow and heat transfer on the surface develops in rotating disk systems such as computer disk drives, gas turbine rotors, etc. Understanding such flow and heat transfer process is important in order to design efficient and energy saving industrial equipment and to develop new approaches in modeling the cooling process for parts of rotating machineries. The main scope of this research project includes investigations of (1) swirl jet inlet conditions with swirl varies from zero to the level that the local tangential velocity of air is less or greater than that of the rotating disk, and (2) rotation of a disk from zero to a certain non-zero level. The result of their first test case is expected either to be presented in a conference or to be published in a journal. During the two-week visit, a long-term goal of continued collaboration in research in a common area was formulated. Both scientists are very encouraged by the outcome of this meeting period and stress the importance of the chance to have face-to-face discussions. They feel that it is in this form of communication that real issues in the research are best discussed and understood.