UF Chemical Engineering > People > Faculty > Chang-Won Park  
Chang-Won Park
Ph.D., 1985, Stanford University (1988)
Professor
Ph : 352-392-6205
park@che.ufl.edu
321 Chemical Engineering Building
 
Areas
Polymer rheology and processing
Multi-phase flows
 
 
Polymer rheology and processing

Keywords : complex fluids, materials, transport phenomena

Multicomponent flows of polymeric materials are encountered frequently in various industrial applications. Due to the complexity of polymer rheology, numerous issues involving such flows remain to be understood. Our study in this area focuses on investigating various multicomponent flows of polymeric fluids through an interplay between process modeling and experiment. The modeling is to establish theoretical bases of various fluid mechanical behaviors observed experimentally. Fundamental understanding is thereby obtained regarding the influence of polymer rheology and processing conditions on the solid-state properties of various articles fabricated by such flows. This study not only provides useful information for process improvement, but also contributes to developing new novel processing techniques for polymeric fluids. As a specific application, various methods to fabricate Graded-Index Polymer Optical Fibers (GI-POF) are investigated. GI-POF is currently of great interest as high bandwidth data transmission media for local area networks or home networks.
Research_Image Schematic of a Home Network Using Polymer Optical Fiiber.
Multi-phase flows
Keywords : complex fluids, energy, transport phenomena

Multiphase flows are of practical importance in numerical industrial applications. Our current interest is in the flow of gas-liquid mixture through a porous medium with a specific focus on a compact reformer system to generate hydrogen from a methanol-water mixture. The compact reformer is to generate hydrogen fuel for portable polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells (PEMFC) that are favored as a portable power source for various applications such as aviation, automobile and consumer electronics (laptops, cell phones, camcorders, etc.). Although pure hydrogen is the best fuel for PEMFC, difficulties associated with hydrogen storage and the portability of the storage system make hydrocarbons to be more practical choices as a fuel for small-size mobile applications. Our research in this area is to develop a new design for a micro-reformer to produce hydrogen from hydrocarbon fuels that provides high efficiency in terms of conversion and thermal management, compactness and easy integration with the fuel cell for portability.
Research_Image Proto-type compact reformer
Recent Publications
1. C.-W. Park, “ PMMA-based GI-POF and Its Application to Optical Interconnects,” Proc. 15th Int. Conf. on Polymer Optical Fibers, Seoul, Korea (2006).
2. C.-W. Park, “ Manufacture of POF,” Proc. 14th Int. Conf. on Polymer Optical Fibers, Hong Kong (2005).
3 K. Yoon, J. Lee, O. Kwon and C.-W. Park, “ Fabrication of GI-POF by a Multi-Stage Reaction Method,” Proc. 13th Int. Conf. on Polymer Optical Fibers, Nuremberg, Germany (2004).
4. C.-W. Park, “ Fabrication Techniques for Plastic Optical Fibers,” in “ Polymer Optical Fibers,” Nalwa, ed., American Scientific Publishers (2004)
5. K. Qin, B. Moudgil and C.-W. Park, “A Chemical Mechanical Polishing Model Incorporating both the Chemcial And Mechanical Effects,” Thin Solid Films, 446, 277-286 (2004)