Abstract

This presentation traces my technical life from its beginnings.  I first describe my early experience in Physics, then my (failed) transition of the Mechanical Engineering discipline of turbulent fluid mechanics.

I then summarize my re-immersion into topics most often included in Physics, but the basis of both my MS and PhD degrees.  They include intra- and inter-molecular energy transfer processes peculiar to pulsed HF chemical lasers, where I measured and modeled radiative emission and absorption for a sub-scale weapons system, geometric and physical optics, and electromagnetic field theory.

Next is a description of research performed by my graduate students (all 72 of them) and undergraduate researchers (all 66 of them) in an area I didn’t even like as a student—classical fluid mechanics.  I also show how subjects I mastered as part of my molecular level PhD thesis research became valuable decades later when I studied the formation and evolution of drops and sprays.

I close my talk with my view on the direction of spray/droplet research.  I also make the important point that it’s not what you learn when you are a student, but discovering how to teach yourself mastery of new topics in later life.

Biography

Paul E. Sojka was born (he refuses to say when) at Detroit’s Harper Hospital, although he never resided within that city’s boundaries.  He did live about 10 miles north of downtown for the first four years of his life, then moved an additional 15 miles north for the next 12.  He moved even further north, graduating from high school just 30 miles south of the 45th parallel.

He journeyed to East Lansing (MSU) for higher education, where he completed his BS (in Physics!), MS and PhD (both in ME).  It took a long time because he spent two summers working for an aerospace company (in NY), one semester at another university (Cornell), and nearly three years at a government research laboratory (AFWL in Albuquerque) where he performed the majority of his thesis research on a topic focused on inter- and intra-molecular energy transport.  This included radiation, plus collisional transfer of vibrational, rotational and translational energies—the application was pulsed HF chemical lasers.

Upon arrival at Purdue his research trajectory went opposite to most of engineering at that time.  Instead of nano-particles whose behavior was investigated using pico-second duration lasers, he shifted to the continuum subject of drops and sprays.  Some 33 years later he’s still at it.

Watch Dr. Sojka's Presentation