Miles Greiner

Career Overview:

Miles Greiner received his Ph.D. in 1986 from MIT where he helped develop the concept of hydrodynamic resonance. He joined the faculty of the University of Nevada, Reno that same year and is currently Professor of Mechanical Engineering. He has taught graduate and undergraduate thermal science courses, engineering mathematics, freshman design, and has developed innovative, low cost methods of teaching instrumentation and experimentation. He was recognized as a Senior Mentor in 1989 and 2001.

He has written extensively about channel topographies and flow conditions that enhance single-phase heat transfer at low Reynolds numbers without increasing pumping power. Experiments and simulations have documented the development and decay of normally dormant two-dimensional Tollmien-Schlichting waves, and the subsequent development of three-dimensional mixing. These works have led to a basic understanding of flows in which heat transfer augmentation is not coupled with increased pumping power. The National Science Foundation, the Gas Research Institute, and the United Technologies Research Center have funded this work.

Professor Greiner has also performed large-scale experiments and computational studies of heat transfer to massive objects engulfed in pool fires. This work has focused on the interaction between fires, the surrounding wind conditions and the engulfed object. It has led to an understanding of the radiation properties of fires as well as the accuracy of inverse conduction techniques used to measure heat flux in fires. He has used this work as a basis to estimate the response of truck and rail sized nuclear waste transport packages under severe accident conditions. The Department of Energy, Sandia National Laboratories, the Nevada Nuclear Waste Project Office, and Innovative Technologies Solutions Corporation have funded this work. He has also advised the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the State of Nevada on nuclear waste package testing. Based on work he performed in this area he received an award for co-authoring the Outstanding Operations, Applications, and Components Technical Paper at the 2003 ASME Pressure Vessel and Piping Conference, and the G.E.O. Widera Literature Award for co-authoring the Outstanding Technical Paper in the 2004 Journal of Pressure Vessure Technology.

In addition to these topics, Dr. Greiner has performed proprietary research in the areas of gas turbine engine film cooling for Pratt Whitney, and advanced hydrogen reformer design for Hydrogen Burner Technologies Corporation.


Heat Transfer Augmentation in Grooved Channels	Large Fire Heat Transfer Experiments	Fire Heat Transfer Simulations