Prof. Rodney Fox
Email: rofox@iastate.edu
Phone: 515-294-9104
Fax: 515-294-2689
Title(s)
Anson Marston Distinguished Professor in Engineering and Hershel B. Whitney Professor, Global Initiatives
Office
3162 Sweeney
618 Bissell Rd.
Ames, IA 50011-1098
Information
AIChE Journal Associate Editor for Transport and Fluid Mechanics; Annual Review of Fluid Mechanics Editorial Board; International Journal of Multiphase Flow Editorial Advisory Board. Honors and Awards: Fellow, American Physical Society; Iowa State University Award for Outstanding Achievement in Research; UDCT Golden Jubilee Visiting Fellowship Lecture, Mumbai, India; Dr. G.P. Kane Chemcon Distinguished Speaker Award, Indian Institute of Chemical Engineers, Hyderabad, India; Glenn Murphy Professor of Engineering; Halliburton Company Teaching Award; Dow Outstanding New Faculty Award, ASEE Midwest Section; 1991 Presidential Young Investigator Award; North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Postdoctoral Fellow; National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Fellow; Fulbright Scholar, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETH), Zurich, Switzerland; RBUCE-UP Marie-Curie Senior Fellow, 2012-14, École Centrale Paris, France; Lagrange Fellow, 2010-11, Politecnico di Torino, Italy
Education
Ph.D. Chemical Engineering, Kansas State University, 1987 M.S. Chemical Engineering, Kansas State University, 1985 B.S. Chemical Engineering (cum laude), Kansas State University, 1982.
Interest Areas
Our research focuses on the development, implementation and validation of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) tools for Chemical Reaction Engineering. With the ever-increasing power of desktop computers, CFD has become a powerful tool for chemical reactor analysis, design and optimization in the chemical process industry. Its successes have led to a growing demand for greater sophistication and range in the types of problems that can be treated. Thus, the elaboration of accurate yet tractable models for the manifold physical and chemical processes that occur in industrial-scale reactors is still very much an open and challenging field of inquiry. In attacking these problems, our modeling efforts draw on a large range of tools originating in diverse fields including probability theory and stochastic processes, non-linear dynamics, computational science and engineering, chemical reaction engineering, and transport phenomena.
Research Projects
U.S. DOE NETL, Development, Verification, and Validation of Multiphase Models for Polydisperse Flows
U.S. DOE NETL, Modeling of Reacting Multiphase Flows with MFIX
U.S. DOE OSCR, Micro-Mesoscopic Modeling of Heterogeneous Chemically Reacting Flows (MMM-HCRF) Over Catalytic/Solid Surfaces
U.S. DOE NERI, Detailed Reaction Kinetics for CFD Modeling of Nuclear Fuel Pellet Coating for High-Temperature Gas-Cooled Reactors
National Science Foundation, NIRT: Functional Nanoparticle Formation by “Flash NanoPrecipitation” and Block Copolymer Directed Assembly
National Science Foundation, NIRT: Multiscale Simulation of Nanoparticle Aggregation for Scale Up of High-Rate Synthesis Methods
National Science Foundation, MRI: Acquisition of a High-Speed Particle Image Velocimetry System for Fluid Dynamics Research
National Science Foundation, CFD Models for Liquid-Phase Chemical Reactors: Validation of PDF and Large-Eddy Simulations Using Stereo PIV and Reactive PLIF Experiments
Univation Technologies, Computational Fluid Dynamics Modeling of Unipol Gas Phase Reactor
Other Information
American Chemical Society American Institute of Chemical Engineers American Physical Society American Society of Engineering Education Omega Chi Epsilon Phi Kappa Phi Sigma Xi Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics