Dr. Mark Schumacks' Research

Keywords: Computational Fluid Dynamics, Heat Transfer, Thermal-Fluid Modeling, Hydrodynamic Lubrication, Alternative Energy Systems

Research Profile

Credentials:
Dr. Schumack obtained his BSME, MSME, and Ph. D. in Mech. Engr. from the University of Michigan in 1980, 1988, and 1991, respectively. After attending a program in Science Communication at Boston University, he worked from 1982 to 1986 at the Cleveland Electric Illuminating Company as a design engineer at a nuclear power plant. He joined the University of Detroit Mercy in 1991 as an assistant professor and was promoted to full professor in 2005.  His research and curriculum development projects have been sponsored by Ford Motor Company, the National Science Foundation, the Michigan-Ohio University Transportation Center, and the State of Michigan Energy Office.  He has also done consulting work in the Climate Control Division at Ford, and was a Visiting Researcher at the Netherlands Energy Research Center.

Research Focus:
Research has included the modeling of automotive windshield washer spray trajectories and the investigation of air flow inside the passenger compartment of a vehicle upon closing of a door, both for Ford Motor Company.  Experimental work has included the determination of loss coefficients for chips lodged in narrow passages.  Other fluid modeling projects have been the study of fluid flow under grinding wheels (using extensions of the lubrication equation), the stability of flow in journal bearing-type geometries, and the development of new algorithms for the computational solution of the Navier-Stokes equations.

Impact of Research:
Dr. Schumack's research in spraywasher flows and study of airflow inside a passenger compartment have direct application in the automotive industry and have led to software tools that shorten the design process. The modeling of fluid flow under a grinding wheel lends insight to the important variables in that manufacturing process. The development of exponentially-convergent spectral methods leads to faster, more efficient computational fluid dynamics and heat transfer software. The stability of journal bearing flows is an important consideration in industrial machinery.

New Directions, Plans or Objectives:
Dr. Schumack plans to continue modeling thermal/fluid phenomena in the automotive and energy industries in the exploration of new technologies that improve energy efficiency.  Another goal is to use spectral methods to model elastohydrodynamic lubrication and study various hydrodynamic instabilities.  He also plans to use data collected from a recently-installed 10 kW solar photovoltaic system on the engineering building to analyze the feasibility of solar energy utilization in Michigan

Contact Information:

Department of Mechanical Engineering
University of Detroit Mercy
4001 W. McNichols
Detroit, Michigan 48221
Phone: (313) 993-3370
Fax: (313) 993-1187
Email: schumamr@udmercy.edu