Sustainability in Energy, Manufacturing and Transportation
We are leveraging our strong success in thermal management, high-speed propulsion, turbo-machinery, and additive manufacturing. Our research will continue to transform manufacturing, hypersonics, energy systems, and quantum materials at the national level, and grow our relationships with government agencies and industry.
Research Labs
Aerospace Research Laboratory
Lab Director: Christopher P. Goyne
Founded in 1986, the Aerospace Research Laboratory spans a wide range of basic and applied research efforts in advanced aerospace technologies.
Experiments and Simulations in Thermal Engineering (ExSiTE)
Lab Director: Patrick E. Hopkins
The research for the ExSiTE group focus on energy transport, charge flow, and photonic interactions with condensed matter, soft materials, liquids, vapors and their interfaces.
Fluids Research and Innovation Laboratory (FRIL)
Lab Director: Eric Loth
Unsteady fluid dynamics, including micro- and nano-texturing coatings for self-cleaning, fluid dynamics and heat transfer of energy-storage systems, inlet aerodynamics of supersonic aircraft and inlet particle separators of helicopters, and bio-inspired morphing wind turbines
Intelligent Systems Lab
Director: Dr. Qing (Cindy) Chang
The Intelligent System Lab has been working on the development of next-generation analytics and control frameworks for smart manufacturing powered by domain knowledge, advanced robotics, big data, IoT, and machine learning techniques.
Mechatronics Lab
Lab Director: Gavin Garner
Mechatronics involves the synergistic integration of Mechanical Engineering with electronics and intelligent computer control in the design and manufacture of industrial products and processes.
Nanoscale Heat Transfer Laboratory
Lab Director: Pamela M. Norris
A state-of-the-art laboratory facility for optical techniques in microscale heat transfer, the lab performs experimental, computational, and theoretical investigations of thin-film thermophysical properties and interfacial thermal transport.
Reacting Flow Lab
Lab Director: Harsha Chelliah
Our primary research interests are in the area of theoretical and experimental combustion, with emphasis on understanding the fundamental interactions between fluid dynamics and finite-rate chemistry.
Rotating Machinery and Controls Laboratories (ROMAC)
Lab Director: Houston Wood
The Rotating Machinery and Controls Laboratory (ROMAC) is an industrial research consortium that performs state-of-the-art research on turbomachinery design and performance.
UVA Thermal Management Diagnostics Group
This group integrates first-principle modeling, simulations, computations, and experimentation in a unique way in order to advance the field of thermal management.
Xu Research Group
Lab Director: Baoxing Xu
The Xu Research Group projects focus multiscale mechanics for functional material and device design — in particular, nanoporous materials, nanopore-functional liquid composite materials, bioinspired and biointegrated electronics and devices, soft-hard integration and adaptive...