Interested in a wide variety of fundamental and applied problems which involve thermal transport processes. Have carried out detailed analytical, numerical and experimental studies in many areas. Though the focus has generally been on the underlying physical mechanisms, the important practical issues have also been considered in many cases. Some of the areas of particular interest have been:

Optical fiber drawing:Furnace drawing of optical fibers, neck-down profile, determination of wall temperature distribution, cooling of fibers, polymer coating, process-induced defects, experimental studies for validation and model development.

Thermal transport in extrusion of polymeric materials: Single and twin-screw extruders, flow in dies, chemical conversion, mixing, residence time, microstructurtal changes, powder flow, transients, modeling and experimentation.

Chemical vapor deposition: Thin film fabrication by chemical vapor deposition, modeling, simulation and optimization of reactors, deposition of silicon and titanium nitride, experimentation on flow, stability and heat transfer, continuous deposition systems.

Other methods for thermal processing of materials: Solidification, melting, continuous processing, hot rolling, heat treatment, soldering, crystal growing and casting.

Enclosure fires: Experimental study of ceiling jets, wall and corner flows, vent flows, buoyancy-driven flows in open shafts, spread of smoke and other combustion products, room fires, aircraft cabin fires, helium smoke simulation, and field and zone modeling of enclosure fires, flow, heat transfer and fire spread in World Trade Center attacks

Cooling of electronic equipment: Numerical and experimental simulation of isolated sources, conjugate heat transfer, wake interactions, forced air cooling, multiple sources, mixed convection over surfaces and in enclosures with heat sources, liquid cooling, oscillatory and turbulent flows, system simulation and design.

Computational and experimental heat transfer: Numerical modeling of convective transport, conjugate problems, variable properties, complicated geometries, phase change problems, open boundaries, free surface flows, and turbulent transport, using finite difference, finite volume and finite element methods. Velocity, temperature, concentration, pressure and heat flux measurements, flow visualization, time-dependent flows, and mass transfer measurements.

Natural and mixed convection: Stability, transition to turbulence, separation, wakes rising above heated bodies, interaction of buoyant flows with surfaces and with other similar flows, buoyant jet flows, thermal stratification, and mixed convection transport from heated surfaces.

Environmental flows: Heat rejection, thermal pollution, recirculation in bodies of water, plumes and jets, ambient stratification, penetrative flows, transport to ambient media.

Energy storage and salt-gradient solar ponds: Numerical and experimental simulation, energy discharge and withdrawal, interface stability, thermal energy storage tanks, solar ponds.

Design and optimization of thermal systems:Knowledge-based design methodology, expert systems, iterative redesign, initial design selection, modeling, simulation and optimization, simulation-based design, and feasibility domain. Design based on dynamic Computational and Experimental Modeling.

Current Research: Chemical vapor deposition; Inverse problems; Thermal management of electronics; Mini and Microchannels; Data centers; Global climate change; Energy systems - wind, solar; Thermal systems - simulation, optimization; Natural optimization; Energy flow in nature.