LIFD Early Career Research Spotlight June: Tien Nguyen

Photograph of Tien and his supervisor - Prof Andrew Bayly standing in front of his poster at the International Congress on Particle Technology in Germany 2019.

Our monthly spotlight on the work and lives of the researchers from the Leeds Institute for Fluid Dynamics

This month: Dr. Tien V Nguyen

Thesis title: Predicting Free-falling Droplet Drying at High Temperatures

School/ Faculty: School of Chemical and Process Engineering, University of Leeds, UK

Supervisors: Prof. Andrew Bayly (primary) and Dr. Muzammil Ali (secondary)

Tell us a bit about yourself:

I grew up in Vietnam and came to the UK 10 years ago. I got my MEng degree in Chemical Engineering at Imperial College London, and then joined Prof. Andrew Bayly’s group at Leeds to work on my PhD project. I love sports and hiking. I often swim and play squash with my colleague. I also love camping both at campsites and in the forest across the UK. I can run 100 meters in 12 seconds, I can flip the pancake three times in the air, and I can also hold my breath under the water for 45 seconds.

What is your research about?

My PhD research focussed on modelling the drying of a tiny micron-droplet falling through the air. My work involved studying the physics that happen within the droplet, such as diffusion, convection, and couple it with the evaporation at the droplet’s surface and also the external flow field. The goal is to have a model that can predict the final morphology of the dried-particle. The scenario becomes more complicated when the air temperature exceeds the droplet boiling point, giving rise to boiling with bubble formation within the droplet. The bubble oscillation cycles can disrupt the normal drying behaviour, affect the formation of the crust at the droplet surface and forms a hole at the center when the moisture dries out. I hope the model I developed during my PhD will be useful for current and future researchers in this field and can be innovated further to include an array of billion droplets.

What did you wish you knew before starting a PhD?

I wish to have developed stronger writing skills before starting the PhD as it helps significantly in the literature review and reports. I could have been much more organized!

What are your plans for the future?

I am looking for a full-time academic job both in researching and teaching. I would like to get involved further in more challenging simulation and modelling projects at the post-doctoral level and practice my teaching skills.