Thermal/Fluid Sciences: heat transfer, fluid mechanics, rheology, solidification, material processing and manufacturing, biofluids, thermal distribution systems, polymers, surfactants, metals, energy conservation, materials.

Professor Matthys' main research areas involve non-Newtonian fluid mechanics and heat transfer, with experimental investigations of the characteristics of complex fluids such as surfactant solutions or polymer solutions, especially turbulent flow of drag-reducing fluids and issues of active control of convective heat transfer. Of interest also are biological fluids, such as natural marine polymers among others. Studies on implementation of drag-reducing fluids in industrial applications such as HVAC or fluid transport are conducted through laboratory and large-scale field tests. Fundamental rheological work on the equilibrium and dynamic viscoelastic properties of drag-reducing fluids undergoing micellar self-assembly is also a focus of the work. In addition, we study transport phenomena in manufacturing and materials processing, which includes experimental and numerical investigations of materials processing and manufacturing systems involving solidification of molten metals.