Biography
Since completing his graduate studies, Dr. Meng-Sing Liou has worked in industry, academia, and government where he has remained since 1986. He served a brief stint (1988-1990) as Chief, Computational Fluid Dynamics Branch. He now holds the Senior Technologist (ST) position for Airbreathing Propulsion Computational Analysis; in this capacity he conducts a number of research projects, as well as assists and advises on the development of a broad range of technologies required by the state-of-the-art computational fluid dynamics and multidisciplinary analysis and design optimization.
Dr. Liou’s research has been in the fields related to fluid dynamics. His Master’s study was in biomechanics at National Taiwan University and was followed by the Ph.D. study in gas dynamics at the University of Michigan; both heavily involved methods of asymptotic analysis. His career in CFD has flourished in the enriching environment of NASA Glenn Center. His study began in algorithms research, which has remained a central area of interest to this date, and later excursed into grid generation, turbulence models, multidisciplinary analysis and optimization, and multiphase flow.
To overcome limitations in existing numerical schemes, Dr. Liou has developed a numerical scheme, called Advection Upstream Splitting Method (AUSM), and subsequently made a series of extensions. The family of AUSM has been applied to a wide variety of applications, including aerodynamic, chemically reacting, multiphase, MHD, to galactic flows, at speed regimes from very low Mach to hypersonic speeds. AUSM is being used by government and industrial organizations throughout the world, and has also been incorporated in major commercial codes, such as ANSYS-Fluent, Aerosoft, Fluidyn, Concepts NREC, and others.
To accurately treat viscous regions over complex geometries by using quality structured meshes, he has developed a fast grid method, known as DRAGON (Direct Replacement of Arbitrary Grid-Overlapping with Non-structured grid); it results in an approach combining strengths of structured and unstructured grid methods, while minimizing their respective shortcomings.
To bring advanced computational predictive capabilities to real-world engineering design, Dr. Liou has been interested in developing high-fidelity, multidisciplinary and multi-objective design optimization capabilities by using genetic algorithms together with other approximate models. This effort has resulted in significant improvements and new shapes that would seem unprecedented by conventional approaches. Dr. Liou is leading an in-house project to develop multidisciplinary design, analysis and optimization capabilities for aerospace applications, especially with relevance to NASA’s current Fundamental Aeronautics Program.
Education
- Ph.D., Aerospace Engineering, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI
- M.S., Aerospace Engineering, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI
- M.S., Mechanical Engineering (Biomechanics), National Taiwan University, Taiwan
- B.S., Mechanical Engineering, National Cheng Kung University, Taiwan
Technical Memberships/Professional Affiliations
Dr. Liou is an Associate Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Fellow of the Society of Shock Wave Research, and an editor for the Shock Wave Journal as well as the International Journal of Aerospace Innovations.
As an adjunct professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara, Dr. Liou participates in efforts to advance computations for complex multiphase flows. He leads the development of the All-Regime Multiphase Simulation code (ARMS), with the capabilities of performing adaptive and parallel computation of the effective-field balance equations. A sharp interface method, whereby jump conditions at interface are enforced, has been developed, resulting in accurate prediction of incipient interfacial (e.g., Kelvin-Helmholtz and Rayleigh-Taylor) instabilities and its growth rate.
Dr. Liou has also been an Adjunct Professor for the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Waterloo, Canada, since 2003. He was a visiting researcher at Tohoku University in Japan beginning in December, 2001-January, 2002, December 2002-January 2003, and in March of 2005. He also was a visiting researcher at Academia Sinica in Taiwan in August and October of 2005 for two weeks, respectively.
Dr. Liou was a Distinguished Visiting Professor at the National Science Council from January to March 1997 in Taiwan and participated in the Summer Faculty program at the U.S. Air Force Office of Scientific Research, from June to August of 1984.
Dr. Liou is an International Scientific Committee member and a member of the AIAA Thermophysics Technical Committee. He has chaired and co-chaired numerous International Symposiums, including the International Symposium on Interdisciplinary Shock Wave Research (2004, 2005) and the Computational Fluid Dynamics Symposium on Aeropropulsion in 1990.
Honors and Awards
- Abe Silverstein Medal (2006) NASA Glenn
- Exceptional Achievement Medal (2004) NASA
- Exceptional Scientific Achievement Medal (1992) NASA
- Group Achievement Award (1991, 1995), NASA
- Software Release Award (two in 2004, 2005), NASA
- Tech Briefs Award (1997, 2000, 2003, two in 2004), NASA
- Outstanding Achievement Award (1977), The University of Michigan
- Tau Beta Pi (national honor society of engineering) (1977), The University of Michigan.
- Fellow, Society of Shock Wave Research.
- Associate Fellow, AIAA.
- Editor: Shock Waves Journal, International Journal of Aerospace Innovations.
