Bio
Dr. Nguyen is a Senior R&D Staff at the Energy Systems Development Group, Advanced Reactor Engineering and Development Section, Oak Ridge National Laboratory. His research focuses on thermal-fluid dynamics with a combination of experimental measurements and numerical modeling addressing various engineering applications such as mechanical, aerospace, civil, chemical and nuclear.
Dr. Nguyen has extensive experience in the development and application of advanced instrumentation (optical fiber sensor, optical sensors, X-ray, and mass spectrometer) and innovative measurement techniques (laser Doppler velocimetry (LDV), laser-induced fluorescent (LIF), particle image velocimetry (PIV, stereoscopic-PIV, and Tomographic PIV), high-speed thermography, shadowgraphy and Schlieren imaging) as well as a strong background in computational fluid dynamics modeling (RANS and LES) for investigating safety-related phenomena, systems and component designs in nuclear, mechanical, and aerospace engineering. These include studies of single and multiphase flows, laminar to turbulent flows, and in-compressible and compressible flows under normal and critical conditions. Dr. Nguyen is also an expert in turbulent flow analysis via mode decomposition approach (POD, DMD), Validation and Verification, and Uncertainty Quantification.
Prior to joining the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Dr. Nguyen was a research faculty at Texas A&M University and had been awarded and served as the Principal Investigator (PI), Co-PI, and Investigator for several funded projects from U.S. Department of Energy, NSUF, and sub-contracts from U.S. National Laboratories, and Industries. These projects investigate thermal-hydraulics effects in nuclear engineering applications such as HTGR Pebble Bed Reactor, NGNP Reactor Building Response to Depressurization Accidents, Nuclear Fuel Assemblies (Light Water Reactors, Sodium Fast Reactors), Reactor Passive Cooling System, and Transport of Fission Products in Gas-cooled Fast Reactors.
Joining ORNL since 04/2021, Dr. Nguyen has worked on projects:
- to support the design of ITER precooler design using CFD (RANS),
- to support the thermal-hydraulics designs of molten salt facilities (Unsteady RANS),
- to characterize structural performances of metal and composite materials in HydroPower Pumped Storage Penstock design coupling Fluid-Structure calculations (CFD-FSI),
- to support the hydrodynamics design of modular sh passage modules used in hydropower stations using URANS and LES approaches,
- to develop an experimental facility of vortex ring and produce validation data for nuclear detonation model using Background Oriented Schlieren (BOS) and PIV techniques,
- to characterize thermalfluid behaviors of energy storage featuring liquid pump and droplet injection (RANS, URANS, LES with VOF and Lagrangian modeling).