Kevin Cassel, PhD

Associate Professor of Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering
Associate Chair for Graduate Programs

Office: E1-209
Phone: 312.567.5939
Fax: 312.567.7230
Email: cassel@iit.edu
Web: Personal Webpage

Expertise

Application of analytical and computational methods in the thermo-fluid sciences.

Education

B.S. Mechanical Engineering, Messiah College, 1988
M.S. Mechanical Engineering, Lehigh University, 1990
Ph.D. Mechanical Engineering, Lehigh University, 1993

Research

Analytical and computational solutions to partial differential equations.
Application of advanced analytical techniques in the thermo-fluid sciences.
Development of serial and parallel numerical algorithms for unsteady fluid flows.
Numerical solutions of unsteady boundary-layer flows in Lagrangian coordinates.
Theoretical description of physical processes in unsteady separation.
Theoretical and numerical investigations of instabilities in boundary-layer flows.
Supersonic and hypersonic boundary-layer flows.
Unsteady mixed-convection boundary-layer flows.
Effects of vortex-surface interaction on wall-bounded flows.
Passive and active control of separation and dynamic stall on airfoils.
Fluid dynamics and heat transfer characteristics of buoyancy-driven flows with heat generation.
Computational simulations of bio-fluids.

Current Projects

Awards/Honors

S. W. Kung Award - for best Ph.D. paper presented at the 1993 Mechanical Engineering and Mechanics Graduate Student Symposium, Lehigh University.
Baldwin Fellowship, Lehigh University (1989-1990).
National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate Fellowship (1991-1993).
National Research Council Postdoctoral Fellowship, National Institute of Standards and Technology (1993-1996).
Philip Thomas Medal of Excellence - for best paper presented at the Fifth International Symposium on Fire Safety Science, Melbourne, Australia, March 3-7, 1997.
Army Research Office Young Investigator Award (1998-2001).
Ralph L. Barnett Excellence in Teaching Award (2001) Mechanical, Materials and Aerospace Engineering Department, Illinois Institute of Technology.
Alfred Noble Prize (2002) - for the paper, A Comparison of Navier-Stokes Solutions with the Theoretical Description of Unsteady Separation, published in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London.
Essential Foreign Participant (2003) Invited to participate in the London Mathematical Society Colloquium on New Developments and Applications of Rapid Fluid Flows as an Essential Foreign Participant (July 2003).
University Excellence in Teaching Award (2008) Illinois Institute of Technology.
Ralph L. Barnett Excellence in Teaching Award (2007) Mechanical, Materials and Aerospace Engineering Department, Illinois Institute of Technology.

Patents

Books

Selected Publications

M. S. Hammes, M. E. Boghosian, K. W. Cassel, B. Funaki, and F. L. Coe "Characteristic Differences in Cephalic Arch Geometry for Diabetic and Non-Diabetic ESRD Patients," Nephrology Dialysis Transplantation (2009), doi: 10.1093/ndt/gfp062.

K. W. Cassel (Guest Editor), "23rd Annual Gallery of Fluid Motion," Physics of Fluids (2006), Vol. 18, No. 9, pp. 091101-091114.

A. V. Obabko and K. W. Cassel, "On the Ejection-Induced Instability in Navier-Stokes Solutions of Unsteady Separation," Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London A (2005), Vol. 363, pp. 1189{1198 (Invited).

D. M. Kaplan, E. L. Black, M. Boghosian, K. W. Cassel, et al , "Progress in Absorber R&D for Muon Cooling," Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research, Section A, (2003), Vol. 503, pp. 392-395.

A. V. Obabko and K. W. Cassel, "Navier-Stokes Solutions of Unsteady Separation Induced by a Vortex," Journal of Fluid Mechanics, (2002), Vol. 465, pp. 99-130.

A. V. Obabko and K. W. Cassel, "Detachment of the Dynamic-Stall Vortex Above a Moving Surface," AIAA Journal, (2002), Vol. 40, No. 9, pp. 1811-1822.

K. W. Cassel, "The Elect of Convective Heat Transfer on Unsteady Boundary-Layer Separation," Journal of Fluid Mechanics (2001), Vol. 428, pp. 107-131.

K. W. Cassel, "A Comparison of Navier-Stokes Solutions with the Theoretical Description of Unsteady Separation," Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London A (2000),Vol. 358, pp. 3207-3227 (Invited).

K. W. Cassel, A. I. Ruban and J. D. A. Walker, "The Influence of Wall Cooling on Hypersonic Boundary-Layer Separation and Stability," Journal of Fluid Mechanics (1996), Vol. 321, pp. 189-216.

K. W. Cassel, F. T. Smith and J. D. A. Walker, "The Onset of Instability in Unsteady Boundary-Layer Separation," Journal of Fluid Mechanics (1996), Vol. 315, pp. 223-256.