Professor
Office: 192-126
Phone Number: 805-756-5583
Email: plemieux@calpoly.edu
Curriculum Vitae (.pdf)
Research Interests
- Wind Power: Developed a research facility at Cal Poly for the study of utility-type horizontal axis wind turbine generators. The facility consists of a 3.0 kW HAWT with active yaw control, hydraulic brake system and supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) system. Areas of research include Prognostic Health Monitoring (PHM); rotor design and performance characterization; mechanics; and failure analysis.
- Rockets and Propulsion: Research focuses on aspects of hybrid rocket performance (solid fuel and liquid oxidizer). Developed a laboratory designed to test hybrid rocket motors. Developed novel techniques to improve the use of aerospike nozzles specifically for hybrid rocket motors. Studied the benefits and limitations of using 2-phase oxidizer flows for cooling of rocket parts.
- Internal Combustion Engines: Current research focuses on enhanced cycles, using Compressed Air Energy Storage (CAES).
- Climate: Studies include modeling heat transfer effect on the El Nino phenomenon and the design of experiments to illustrate radiation energy absorption of in a “participating media” atmosphere.
Education
- Ph.D. (Mechanical Engineering), Caltech, Pasadena, California. Advisor: HG Hornung, 1999
- M.Sc. (Thermal Power), Cranfield University, Bedford, England, 1992
- B.Sc.Eng. (Mechanical Engineering), University of New Brunswick, Fredericton, Canada, 1991
Academic Experience
- California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, San Luis Obispo, California
- Professor of Mechanical Engineering, 2012-present
- Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering, 2007-2012
- Munich University of Applied Sciences (Hochschule München), Munich, Germany
- Mechanical Engineering Summer School Lecturer, 2014-present
Industrial & Consulting Experience
- polyXengineering, Inc (www.polyxengineering.com), San Luis Obispo, California —2016-present
- Co-founder and President
- Exponent Inc., Los Angeles, California, 2000—2016
- Failure analysis engineering consultant
- Honeywell International, Torrance, California —1999-2000
- Staff Engineer (Engines; Environment Control Systems)
- IBM Canada Ltd, Toronto, Canada —1989-1990
- Engineer Trainee (Manufacturing)
Professional Associations & Certifications
- Associate Fellow: American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA)
- Technical Committee Member:
- American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA), Hybrid Rockets (2014-present)
- National Fire Protection Association (NFPA), Aircraft Maintenance Operations NFPA 410 (2005-2008)
- Member: American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME)
- Licensed Mechanical Engineer, M 32617: California Board for Professional Engineers and Land Surveyors (2003-present)
- Licensed pilot, Multi-Engine Land
Patents
- “Windpower LifeLine,” (provisional application #62/663,513), DOE “S” #T-117026, iEdison Report #0513609-18-0001
- “Air-Cycle Environmental Control Systems and Methods for Automotive Applications”, Patent No.: US 9,249,998 B2, 17 additional claims allowed for Method, Sept. 2017
- “System, Method and Apparatus for Improving Gas Turbine Performance with Compressed Air Energy Storage”, U.S. Department of Commerce, U.S. Patent and trademark Office; Pub. No.: US 2017/0254265 Al, Sept. 2017
- “Air-Cycle Environmental Control Systems and Methods for Automotive Applications”, Patent No.: US 9,249,998 B2, Feb. 2016
- “System, Method and Apparatus for Cooling Rocket Motor Components Using a Saturated Liquid-Vapor Coolant Mixture”, Patent No.: US 8,776,494 B2, 2014
Publications
- Journal Articles
- Lemieux P, Fara A, Sanchez P, Murray WR, “Development and Test of an Experimental Apparatus to Study Thermal-Choking in Ideal Gases and Self-Decomposition in Superheated N2O”, Journal of Energy and Power Engineering, 2014
- Lemieux P, Murray WR, Cooke T and Gerhard J “An ‘Inefficient Fin’ Non-Dimensional Parameter to Measure Gas Temperature Efficiently”, NASA Tech Briefs, Vol. 36, No. 5, 2012
- Lemieux P “Nitrous Oxide Cooling in Hybrid Rocket Nozzles”, Progress in Aerospace Sciences, V46, Issue 2, 2010
- Lemieux P, Hornung HG “Development and Application of Streakline Visualization in Hypervelocity Flow”, Experiments in Fluids, 2002
- Hornung HG and Lemieux P “Shock Instability Near the Newtonian Limit Of Hypervelocity Flows,” Physics of Fluids, 2001
- Articles Published
- Ercole G, Garofalo E, Lemieux P, Maglie MM, and Pastrone D “N2O-Cooled Aerospike for a Hybrid Rocket Motor: Nitrous Oxide Characterization and Additive Manufacturing”, AIAA-2017-XXXX, 53rd AIAA/SAE/ASEE Joint Propulsion Conference, Atlanta, Georgia, 2017
Lemieux P “Improving the Simple Gas Turbine Cycle with Compressed Air Energy Storage (CAES)”, AIAA-2016-4616, 52nd AIAA/SAE/ASEE Joint Propulsion Conference, Salt Lake City, Utah, 2016 - Arribas PS, Lemieux P, Pastrone D “Modeling of N2O Heat Transfer Rates in the Nucleate Boiling Regime, with Experimental Verification”, AIAA/ASME 51st Joint Propulsion Conference, Orlando, Florida, 2015
Lemieux P, Moore CD and Nahab A “Performance Measurement and Analysis of Vertical Shaft V-Twin Engines, and Comparison with Horizontal Engines of the Same Model Class”, ASME Internal Combustion Engine Division Fall Technical Conference, 2012 - Lemieux P and Murray WR, “Nitrous Oxide Cooled, Reusable Hybrid Aerospike Rocket Motor: Experimental Results”, AIAA/ASME 48th Joint Propulsion Conference, 2012
Katsanis G and Lemieux P “Transient Small Wind Turbine Tower Structural Analysis with Coupled Rotor Dynamic Interaction”, American Wind Energy Association, Windpower2012 Conference, Atlanta, Georgia, June 2012. - Pastrich D, Lemieux P and Owen F “Design of a Safety System for Wind Turbine Tower Tilt-Down Operations” , American Wind Energy Association, Windpower2012 Conference, Atlanta, Georgia, June 2012.
Lemieux P, Moore CD, Gerhardt JG and Dershowitz A “Engine Performance Measurements of Four V-Twin Engines, Using SAE J1349 Correction Factors”, SAE/JSAE Small Engine Technology Conference, Sapporo, Japan, 2011 - Grieb JG, Lemieux P, Murray WR, Mello JD, Cooke TH and Gerhardt JA “Design and Analysis of a Reusable N2O-Cooled Aerospike Nozzle for Labscale Hybrid Rocket Motor Testing”, AIAA 47th Joint Propulsion Conference, San Diego, 2011
- Hornung HG, Lemieux P, Kaneshigue M and Valiferdowwsi B “Two Effects of High Density Ratio Across Bow Shocks, Part I”, 41st AIAA Fluid Dynamics Conference and Exhibit, Honolulu, 2011 [Note: Paper received ‘2011 Fluid Dynamics Award’]
- Forster C and Lemieux P “Development of an air-cycle environmental control system for automotive applications” , Proceedings of the Turbine Technical Conference and Exposition, ASME Turbo Expo, Vancouver 2011
- Lemieux P “Development of a Reusable Aerospike Nozzle for Hybrid Rocket Motors”, 39th AIAA Fluid Dynamics Conference, San Antonio, 2009
- Lemieux P and Ridgely JR “Cal Poly Wind Power Research Center”, American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) Windpower Conference, Houston, 2008
- Nosti C, Lemieux P and Gascoigne H “Performance Analysis and Life Prediction for Small Wind Turbines: A Wood Laminate Case Study”, American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) Windpower Conference, Houston, 2008
- Katsanis G and Lemieux P “Structural Analysis of Small Wind Turbine Towers”, American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) Windpower Conference, Houston, 2008
- Lemieux P “High Acceleration Testing for the Mars Microprobe Project”, GALCIT report FM 97-6, Pasadena, California, 1997
- Lemieux P “Visualizing the Vorticity Produced by Curved Shocks,” 21st International Symposium on Shock Waves, Great Keppel, Australia, 1997
- Venart JES, Lemieux P, Sousa ACM and Tatchell D “The Use of a High Level CFD Code in Engineering Education”, Supercomputing Symposium , Fredericton, Canada, 1991
- Ercole G, Garofalo E, Lemieux P, Maglie MM, and Pastrone D “N2O-Cooled Aerospike for a Hybrid Rocket Motor: Nitrous Oxide Characterization and Additive Manufacturing”, AIAA-2017-XXXX, 53rd AIAA/SAE/ASEE Joint Propulsion Conference, Atlanta, Georgia, 2017
Courses Taught
- ME 302 Thermodynamics I, (Introductory thermodynamics course)
- ME 303 Thermodynamics II, (Intermediate thermodynamics (and terminal course in the Cal Poly thermodynamics curriculum). Covers vapor and gas power cycles, refrigeration cycles, thermodynamic relations, psychrometrics, and chemical reactions.)
- ME 341 Fluid Mechanics I, (Introductory course in undergraduate fluid mechanics. Focuses on fundamental principles such as fluid statics; integral equations for a control volume; introduction to differential analysis of fluid motion; Bernoulli’s Equation; dimensional analysis; internal flows.)
- ME 347 Fluid Mechanics II, (Intermediate course in undergraduate fluid mechanics. Focuses on conservation equations of fluid dynamics, viscous flow, boundary layer concepts, lift and drag, compressible flow, and turbomachinery. Also includes a laboratory (which I did not teach) focused on measurement of turbomachine performance, velocity profiles, and boundary layers.)
- ME 343 Heat Transfer, (Fundamental course on engineering heat transfer. Covers all three modes of heat transfer: conduction, radiation and convection.)
- ME 350 Heat Transfer Laboratory (Laboratory experiments to characterize thermodynamic material properties, energy conversion processes, thermodynamic cycles, and performance of heat transfer equipment. Developed a new laboratory experiment focused on the modeling and verification of the spark ignition (Otto) power cycle.)
- ME 422 Introduction to Mechanical Control Systems, (Modeling and control of physical systems. Design of mechanical, hydraulic and electrical systems using time response, frequency response, state space, and computer simulation.)
- ME 428-429-430 Senior Project Design I-II-III, (Capstone, project-based course series of the Mechanical Engineering program. Acted as both advisor, and sponsor, to several student groups.)
- ME 444 Internal Combustion Engines Performance and Design Analysis, (This senior-level class covers the performance aspects of the design and analysis of reciprocating and gas turbine engines. It carries a large laboratory component, which includes glass combustion chamber engines; a single cylinder, multiple fuels, Cooperative Fuel Research (CFR) engine; several large diesel, gasoline and ethanol engines; several dynamometers and related engine performance instrumentation; and an instrumented gas turbine engine)
- ME 457 Refrigeration Principles and Design, (Senior-level technical elective class that presents and studies the most common methods of refrigeration methods found in industry, including multi-staged and cascading vapor cycles, absorption cycles, and reversed Brayton cycles. The laboratory component of the course includes computer modeling of the various systems investigated in class, and the development and fabrication of a scaled-down ice rink.)
- ME 488 Wind Energy Engineering, (This course focuses on the aerodynamic planform design, analysis, and optimization of horizontal axis wind turbine blades operating at design and off-design conditions.)
- ME 542 Dynamics and Thermodynamics of Compressible Flows (Gas Dynamics), (This graduate course presents the fundamental mechanics of compressible flow, from basic principles to the analysis of shock and expansion waves, with specific focus on friction-driven (Fanno) and heat-driven (Rayleigh) flows.)
Honors & Awards
- Bently Professor of Mechanical Engineering, California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, 2010-2014; 2017-2019
- Outstanding Graduate Thesis Award (to George Katsanis, advisee), California Polytechnic State University, 2014
- Chrones Professor of Mechanical Engineering, California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, 2007-2008.
- Exponent ‘Excellence Award’ for engineering work on the modeling of the World Trade Center, 2002.
- Charles Lee Powell Graduate Fellowship, Caltech, 1997-1998.
- Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada PGS-A and PGS-B scholarships for tenure at Caltech, 1992-1996.
- Daniel and Florence Guggenheim Fellowship in Jet Propulsion, 1992-1994.
Athlone-Vanier Engineering Fellowship, for graduate studies in the U.K. (three awarded per year in Canada), 1991-1992. - John Stephens Memorial Prize for highest standing in the graduating Mechanical Engineering Class of 1991 at the University of New Brunswick, Canada.