Research

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Rich Lueptow’s research interests and expertise range from fundamental flow physics to water purification to planetary acoustics. His current research focuses on molecular modeling of water purification membranes and granular flow dynamics for the chemical and pharmaceutical industries. He has published nearly 200 refereed journal papers and 6 patents. The image at the left shows a molecular dynamics simulation of ethanol molecules (blue) through a reverse osmosis membrane (green) where red patches are instantaneous hydrogen bonds.

Areas of Research

Granular Flow and Segregation

A rich variety of phenomena occur in granular flows, particularly when particles of different sizes or densities segregate from one another

Membrane Filtration

We study many aspects of filtration from a fundamental standpoint, with particular interest in using molecular dynamics simulations for water purification using nanofiltration and reverse osmosis membranes

Dynamical Systems, Chaos, and Mixing

We investigate dynamical systems as related to mixing, pattern formation, and segregation (no longer an active area of research)

Taylor-Couette Flow

The flow in the annulus between a rotating inner cylinder and a fixed outer cylinder, known as Taylor Couette flow, is a rich dynamical system that we have studied experimentally, computationally, and theoretically (no longer an active area of research)

Fire Suppression Sprays

We made some of the first measurements of fire sprinkler sprays using Particle Image Velocimetry (no longer an active area of research)

Turbulent Boundary Layers

Boundary layers on cylindrical bodies have similarities and differences with flat plate boundary layers (no longer an active area of research)

Physical Acoustics

Acoustic measurements have the potential to provide a fingerprint for the composition of gas mixtures, which can be used for probing planetary atmospheres (no longer an active area of research)