NRC Link

Education

  • Ph.D., University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1973
  • M.Sc., University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1971
  • B.Sc., Alexandria University, Egypt, 1967

Background

Dr. Abdel-Khalik joined the Georgia Tech faculty as the Georgia Power Distinguished Professor in 1987.  He was appointed to his current position as the Southern Nuclear Distinguished Professor in 1993.  He served as Associate Director of the Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering between 1990 and 1992 and as the Georgia Tech Secretary of the Faculty between 2002 and 2006.  He served as a member of the USNRC Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards (ACRS) between 2006 and 2012, including two years as Chairman (2009-2011).  Prior to joining the Georgia Tech faculty, Dr. Abdel-Khalik served as a faculty member in the Nuclear Engineering and Engineering Physics Department (1976-1987) and as a Postdoctoral Fellow in Chemical Engineering (1973-1975) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.  Dr. Abdel-Khalik also served as a Senior Engineer at Babcock and Wilcox Nuclear Power Generation Division (1975); as a Guest Research Scientist at the Nuclear Research Center in Karlsruhe, Germany (1979); and as an Invited Professor at EPFL, Lausanne, Switzerland (1982).

Dr. Abdel-Khalik currently serves as a member of the External Advisory Boards for the School of Nuclear Engineering at Purdue University and the Mechanical Engineering Department of King Saud University in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.  He also serves as a member of the Board of Trustees for Badr University in Cairo, Egypt.

Research

  • Nuclear Engineering; Fusion Technology; Heat Transfer and Energy Systems

Over the past forty years, Dr. Abdel-Khalik’s research has covered a wide range of areas in both nuclear and mechanical engineering; including reactor operations and safety, reactor engineering and thermal-hydraulics, accident and transient analysis, two-phase flow and heat transfer, cooling of ultra-high power density systems; first wall protection and cooling of high power lasers for inertial fusion applications; microscale heat transfer, and vapor explosions.  Dr. Abdel-Khalik has supervised over 110 graduate theses in both mechanical and nuclear engineering.  His research has resulted in nearly 400 papers and publications in leading journals and conference proceedings as well as several patents.  His research is funded by both Government agencies and industry, including the US Department of Energy, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and Southern Nuclear Operating Company.

Distinctions & Awards:

Georgia Tech:

  • Outstanding Faculty Leadership for the Development of Graduate Research Assistants, 1994
  • Sigma Xi Chapter, Outstanding PhD Thesis (Dr. W. Ren); 1995
  • Outstanding Doctoral Thesis Advisor, 1998
  • Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering, Ziegler Outstanding Educator Award; 2000
  • Outstanding Faculty Service Award, 2003  

University of Wisconsin-Madison:

  • Outstanding Teacher Award, Nuclear Engineering and Engineering Physics; 1981and 1987

American Nuclear Society:

  • Fellow; 1995
  • Best Student Paper Award, Topical Meeting on Technology of Fusion Energy; 2002 and 2010
  • Outstanding Achievement Award, Fusion Energy Division; 2006

American Society of Mechanical Engineers:

  • Fellow; 1999
  • Best Paper Award, National Heat Transfer Conference; 1999

American Society for Engineering Education:

  • The Glenn Murphy Award, Nuclear Engineering Division; 1999

Nuclear Regulatory Commission:

  • Member Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards (ACRS); 2006-2012
  • Vice-Chairman, ACRS; 2007-2009
  • Chairman, ACRS 2009-2011

Southern Nuclear Operating Company:

  • Member, Nuclear Safety Review Board (Hatch, Farley, and Vogtle Nuclear Plants); 2007-2013

Institute for Nuclear Power Operations:

  • Member, Advisory Council, 2013 to date

 

Patents

  • “A Nuclear Reactor Control System," US Patent No. 5,045,275 (September 3, 1991).
  • A Film Pump for Applying a Monolayer Film over Water Surfaces” (with M. T. Pauken and S. M. Jeter); US Patent No. 5,558,845 (September 24, 1996).
  • “Electrode Arrangement for Electrohydrodynamic Enhancement of Heat and Mass Transfer,” (with S. M. Jeter); US Patent No. 6,374,909 (April 23, 2002).
  • “Solid Particle Receiver with Porous Structure for Flow Regulation and Enhancement of Heat Transfer,” US 2013/0068217A1 dated 03/21/2013 (with H. Al-Ansary, et al.).
  • “Nozzle Apparatus and Method”  Patent Application US-2015-0083819-A1, dated 03/26/15 (with H. Al-Ansary and K. Schoonover)

Selected Publications:

  • “Numerical simulation of particulate flow in interconnected porous media for central particle-heating receiver applications,” Solar Energy, 113, 14-24, 2015 (with T. Lee, et al.)
  • “The ARIES advanced and conservative Tokamak power plant study,” Fusion Science and Technology, 67, 1-21, 2015 (with C. E. Kessel, et al.)
  • “Experimental evaluation of the thermal hydraulics of helium-cooled divertors,” Fusion Science and Technology, 67, 142-157, 2015 (with M. Yoda, et al.)
  • “Numerical and experimental studies of Electra’s scalloped transmission foil cooling with small impinging jets,” Fusion Engineering and Design, 88, 3152-3156, 2013 (with B. Lu, et al.)
  • “An experimental study of the effects of solid-to-coolant thermal conductivity ratio in helium-cooled divertor modules,” Fusion Science and Technology, 64, 670-674, 2013 (with B. H. Mills, et al.)
  • “Optimization of pin-fin arrays for helium-cooled finger-type divertor,” Fusion Science and Technology, 64, 315-319, 2013 (with J. D. Rader, et al.)
  • “Dynamically-similar studies of thermal performance of helium-cooled finger-type divertors without fins,” Fusion Science and Technology, 62, 379-388, 2012 (with B. H. Mills, et al.)
  • “Investigation of Electra KrF laser hibachi foil cooling with small obliquely impinging jets,” Fusion Engineering and Design, 87, 352-358, 2012 (with B. Lu, et al.)

Frequently-Cited Papers:

  • “High heat flux components readiness to proceed from near term fusion systems to power plants,” Fusion Engineering and Design, 85, 93-108, 2010 (with A. R. Raffray, et al.)
  • “An Experimental investigation of microchannel flow with internal pressure measurements,” International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer, 48, 1518-1533, 2005 (with M. J. Kohl, et al.)
  • “Accurate representation of surface tension using the level contour reconstruction method,” Journal of Computational Physics, 203, 493-516, 2005 (with S. Shin, et al.)
  • “Pressure drop caused by abrupt flow area changes in small channels,” Experimental Thermal and Fluid Science, 29, 425-434, 2005 (with F. F. Abdelall, et al.)
  • “The onset of flow instability in uniformly heated horizontal channels,” Journal of Heat Transfer – Transactions of the ASME, 122, 118-125, 2000 (with J. E. Kennedy, et al.)
  • “Gas-Liquid two-phase flow in Microchannels – Part I:  two-phase flow patterns,” International Journal of Multiphase Flow, 25, 377-394, 1999 (with K.A. Triplett, et al.)
  • “Gas-Liquid two-phase flow in Microchannels – Part II:  void fraction and pressure drop,” International Journal of Multiphase Flow, 25, 395-410, 1999 (with K.A. Triplett, et al.)
  • “Low-flow critical heat flux in heated microchannels,” Nuclear Science and Engineering, 131, 411-425, 1999 (with G. M. Roach, et al.)
  • “An experimental investigation of single-phase forced convection in microchannels,” International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer, 41, 851-857, 1998 (with T. M. Adams, et al.)
  • “A critical heat flux correlation for droplet impact cooling,” International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer, 40, 2123-2131, 1997 (with M. L. Sawyer, et al.)
  • “A statistical analysis of saturated nucleate boiling along a heated wire,” International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer, 26, 509-519, 1983 (with D. D. Paul).
  • “Co-rotational rheological models and the Goddard expansion,” AIChE Journal, 20, 1041-1066, 1974 (with R. B. Bird, and O. Hassager)