The University of Oklahoma

“The most important single limitation of the human mind for turbulence research is our inability to hold more than 7 (plus or minus 2) bits of uncorrelated information in out short-term (working memory) — the thinking part of the brain.” S.J. Kline

PROFESSIONAL HISTORY

  • The University of Oklahoma, School of Chemical, Biological and Materials Engineering, C.M. Sliepcevich Professor, 7/09-present
  • National Science Foundation, Division of Chemical, Bioengineering, Environmental and Transport systems, Fluid Dynamics Program Director, Summer 2013-August 2016
  • The University of Oklahoma, School of Chemical, Biological and Materials Engineering, Sarkeys Energy Center, Associate Professor, 7/05-6/09
  • The University of Oklahoma, School of Chemical, Biological and Materials Engineering, Sarkeys Energy Center, Assistant Professor, 3/99-6/05
  • Mobil Technology Company, Upstream Strategic Research Center, Senior Research Engineer, 6/98-2/99
  • Mobil Technology Company, Upstream Strategic Research Center, Postdoctoral Research Associate, 9/96-6/98
  • University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Research and Teaching Assistant, 9/90-9/96
  • Chemical Process Engineering Research Institute in Thessaloniki-Greece, Graduate Research Fellow, 10/89-7/90

EDUCATION

Ph.D. Chemical Engineering (1996), University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
M.S. Chemical Engineering (1993), University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Diploma, Chemical Engineering (1989), Aristotle University of Thessaloniki

RESEARCH INTERESTS

The focus of my research is on the fundamental understanding and modeling of transport processes with industrial and environmental interest. Novel computational methods are developed and applied to explore turbulent transport of mass and heat, flow and mass transfer in bioreactors, heat transfer in micro- and nano-fluidics, and flow and transport through porous media.

Our Lagrangian scalar tracking (LST) methodology is used to investigate flow effects on turbulent transport and the progress of chemical reactions, to study the transport of nanoparticles in soils, and to explore the thermal properties of carbon nanotube composite materials. We are also employing multiscale methods for transport through porous materials. We use Dissipative Particle Dynamics to investigate nanofluids and their rheological behavior and surface-nanoparticle interactions.

Our methods provide high fidelity measurements for turbulent channel and plane Couette flow, we can measure heat and mass transfer in these channels and we can monitor the trajectories of hundreds of thousands of particles that mix. In each case, the flow is simulated using appropriate methods for each important physical scale. High End Computers are utilized to conduct the numerical experiments and to interpret the data. Parallel to the development of prototype software, off-the-shelf software is used to predict flows that can improve industrially important process, such as melt-blowing, or can predict hemodynamics, such as blood flow in the human vascular system and hemolysis.

My research interests include a number of emerging areas, such as protein and polymer behavior in small scales (at the interface between statistical mechanics and classical mechanics).

Contact Information

School of Chemical, Biological and Materials Engineering
100 East Boyd Street, SEC-T301
Norman, Ok 73019
Phone: (405) 325-5811
Fax:   (405) 325-5813
E-mail: dvpapava at ou dot edu