Investigations of Heat Transfer Processes in Thermal Systems
The talk will focus on principles of heat transfer and their applications in litigation. Several case studies will be presented. First a study of a gas heater’s thermal compliance with the applicable ANSI standard corroborated by experimental data. Moreover, an experimental study of sauna’s temperature characteristics will be discussed. Additionally, a computational analysis of a battery cell undergoing thermal runaway will be presented. Finally, the recommendations for safe handling and storage of unstable materials that are prone to undergoing exothermic reaction will be discussed.
Dr. Frajnkovic specializes in heat transfer, computational fluid dynamics (CFD), transport phenomena, and fast-charging battery systems. His expertise includes experimental and numerical analysis of electrochemical energy storage systems, with a focus on measuring heat generation during battery and capacitor cycling using isothermal operando calorimetry. He is skilled in a range of electrochemical techniques such as galvanostatic cycling, cyclic voltammetry, electrochemical impedance spectroscopy, and GITT, and has experience addressing battery thermal runaway events and conducting CFD simulations using software like Star-CCM+, Ansys, and Comsol.
At Exponent, Dr. Frajnkovic has contributed to product testing, custom test development, and system failure analysis across thermal and mechanical domains. He has supported regulatory compliance projects for industrial steam operations and conducted field investigations into wildfire and structure fire causes. Before joining Exponent, he completed his doctoral research at UCLA, where he studied the thermal behavior of hybrid supercapacitors, developed models for irreversible heat generation, and examined entropic changes in battery materials to better understand their electrochemical performance.
.gif)