Kostic's Research Interests and Career Goals

Kostic's Research Interests and Career Goals

Dr. Kostic's current career research goals are:

A Nanofluids Research Initiative:
Development of hybrid, Drag-Reduction nanofluids with polymer additives (dubbed POLYnanofluids and DRnanofluids) and investigation of their structural, diffusion, thermo-physical, flow and heat transfer characteristics, for diverse applications, including novel fluid/thermal systems, enhanced energy/heat transfer, flow friction reduction and tribology, pharmaceutics and bioengineering, and environmental control and cleanup ( www.kostic.niu.edu/DRnanofluids );
CFD Bridge Hydraulics and Aerodynamics Research (Click for more Info)
Hydraulics and Aerodynamics Research in Transportation Applications Project in collaboration with Argonne National Laboratory as part of wider collaborations between Argonne National Laboratory (ANL), Turner-Fairbank Highway Research Center (TFHRC), University of Nebraska in Omaha (UNeb), and Northern Illinois University (NIU). The Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) based simulation techniques are being developed and evaluated by all four organizations to validate the CFD models based on the reduced scale experiments conducted at TFHRC hydraulics laboratory .
"The CFD simulations will address a range of hydraulics and aerodynamics research including, but not limited to, the assessment of lift and drag forces on bridge decks under various flood and wind conditions, optimization of bridge deck shapes to minimize pressure flow scour, analysis of sediment transport and its influence on scouring, evaluation of active or passive scour countermeasures to mitigate the damage, and addressing environmental issues such as fish passage through culverts. The applicability of the commercial CFD codes such as Star-CD and Fluent for prediction of these phenomena will be investigated, and the agreement between the code predictions and experimental data will be evaluated for various modeling options."
experimental and computational (CFD and Heat Transfer) analysis and design for industry and manufacturing processes, and energy/thermal management and optimization: Scintillator Extrusion Simulation and Die Design ;
energy conservation research and application with emphasis on the Second Law analysis and efficiency improvement of energy components and systems;
development of modern measurement systems with computerized data acquisition;
development of new methods and apparatus for measurements of thermophysical properties, specifically viscosity and thermal conductivity measurements for diverse substances, including non-Newtonian and viscoelastic fluids;
further heat transfer research of viscoelastic fluids in channel flow and in more complex flow situations.

He plans to extend his research from "shell-like" observations of fluid behavior at duct boundary (wall), to observations of fluid behavior within the "black box", i.e., the inside of a duct flow in order to better understand the underlying physical phenomena. The development and improvement of suitable experimental methods, such as Laser Doppler Velocimetry, local temperature measurements, and flow visualization, are other career goals. In the future Professor Kostic intends to extend his research on these complex fluids to more complex flow situations, such as entrance flows and various flow geometries. Development of practical correlations suitable for design applications is his ultimate goal.

Professor Kostic has always emphasized creativity, design and computer applications in teaching and research. His obsession is to comprehend a genuine understanding of physical phenomena in order to solve challenging, real-life problems in general area of advanced thermal/energy systems and complex (including non- Newtonian) fluid flow and heat transfer.

Kostic's philosophy that every existing problem has its own (optimal) solution has resulted in a strong intuition and rational approach with high motivation for problem solving.

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