Thermal Sciences Laboratories

The thermal sciences laboratory is primarily used for EML 4304L, a three-unit laboratory course offered every spring semester with an enrollment of 50-70 students. The aim of this course is to introduce the students to the modern and conventional experimental and diagnostic techniques commonly used in heat transfer, fluid mechanics and thermodynamics. By seeing the practical application of the physical principles learned earlier in the related courses, the understanding of these concepts is reinforced. As a result of the restructuring of the curriculum, the labs are closely tied to the material being covered in the corresponding series of thermal science courses, EML 3015C and 3016C.

This laboratory is well equipped with the hardware needed to design experiments that illustrate the basic principles in thermal sciences, including two wind tunnels, three-computer-based data acquisition systems, a complete Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV) System (Includes; computers, frame-grabber, laser and digital cameras), A large optics table and an Argon-ion laser for flow visualization. The lab is also equipped with conventional instrumentation, such and pressure and temperature sensors (thermocouples, thermistors, RTD sensors), and hot wire probes, as well as modern instrumentation, such as Lasers and Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV) equipment. The laboratory also includes multiple workstations specifically designed to illustrate various principles of fluid mechanics and heat transfer. Some of these units have been purchased, (e.g., an apparatus for measuring thermal conductivity), while some have been designed and fabricated in-house, (e.g. an apparatus for measuring pressure losses in pipes).