Morris R. Flynn, Ph.D., P.Eng.

RESEARCH FOCUS

My research sits at the intersection of industry and the environment and considers the impact of one upon the other, primarily through fluid mechanics and heat transfer. I am therefore drawn to societally-relevant problems that study the transport and dispersion of pollutants in the atmosphere, or through marine systems or porous media. Of equal interest are scenarios where environmental factors exert an order-one influence on engineering design. Studying either category of problem requires a broad array of theoretical, experimental and numerical tools.

RESEARCH INTERESTS (alphabetical listing)

1. BUCKLING OF THIN, VISCOUS FILMS: Pull on an elastic sheet (e.g. a piece of Saran wrap) and you will see a series of wrinkles develop with roughly evenly spaced crests. Comparable buckling behavior is also possible when considering thin, viscous films. The analogy between one and the other problem is termed the Stokes-Rayleigh analogy and enjoys a rich history in the fluid mechanics literature.
2. BUOYANT CONVECTION IN POROUS MEDIA: Strategies for decarbonizing energy systems often make reference to porous media flow e.g. the geological sequestration of CO2 or the geological storage of green H2. I am interested in understanding these processes with particular focus on the interplay between leakage, dissolution and dispersion.
3. CONTINUUM MODELS OF TRAFFIC FLOW: As with fluid mechanics, a fruitful avenue for understanding traffic flow is to model the stream of particles (in this case vehicles) as a continuum. This approach allows one to model the complicated behavior of "phantom jams," which arise in the absence of bottlenecks and lane closures.
4. GRAVITY CURRENTS AND INTRUSIONS: Gravity currents, horizontal flows driven by small density differences, are ubiquitous in the natural environment..An important goal of my research is to characterize the properties of gravity currents (e.g. their speed and shape) using numerical, experimental and/or theoretical modeling.
5. INTERNAL GRAVITY WAVES: Vertically propagating waves that exist inside of a continuously stratified fluid are responsible for phenomena as distinct as clear air turbulence to mixing along ocean continental shelves. I am interested in studying the properties (e.g. the vertical modal structure) of such internal waves e.g. those excited by oscillating solid bodies.
6. NATURAL VENTILATION/ARCHITECTURAL FLUID MECHANICS: Strategies for ventilating modern buildings without energy-intensive equipment are being developed rapidly, but many fundamental questions regarding this technology remain unresolved. For instance, it is unclear how to best optimize system performance given that real buildings have a complicated internal geometry and are forced by a combination of internal and external factors.
7. TRANSPORT THROUGH SURFACE-ATTACHED AIR BUBBLES: Superhydrophobic materials retain an air layer (or "plastron") when submerged. In turn, the air layer impacts transport processes, whether these pertain to heat, mass or momentum. Using theory to resolve the associated details informs processes as distinct as underwater breathing by insects to temperature regulation in lab-on-a-chip devices.
8. PLUME DYNAMICS: Buoyant convection from isolated sources yields fascintating patterns of (typically turbulent) flow, examples of which span many length-scales. Although integral models coupled with turbulence parameterizations yield simple conceptual models, these models require substantial modification to describe e.g. the merger of adjacent plumes.
9. TRANSPORT PROCESSES IN INDUSTRY: Rising global temperatures emphasize the importance of innovative cooling solutions. Inevitably, the associated optimization must carefully consider the flow of heat and mass, whether these apply to the cross-flow of air and water in a cooling tower or to the counter-flow of liquid and vapor in a heat pipe. Using physical principles (and measured data) to develop the requisite multi-phase models is an on-going but vital challenge.