Nicolas Romero Gonzalez

Biography

I got my Bachelor's degree in Chemical Engineering from the Anahuac University, in Tampico, Mexico. My thesis (in which my brother Moises Romero is a co-author) Nanocomposite via in-situ polymerization of styrene with functionalized montmorillonite clay was recognized as the best engineering thesis by the ATICTAC.

In 2003 started working in CDI Engineering Solutions, one of the biggest EPC companies in the United States. I was part of the Process Engineering Team working in different projects for the Petrochemical Industry in the Gulf of Mexico; some projects as big as $500 million US dollars.

By early 2010, I started my PhD in the Process Fluidics Group in which I stayed until late 2012. Currently I'm working in Calgary, Canada for an EP Company which serves the Western Canada's oil sands utilizing the Steam Assisted Gravity Drainage or SAGD."

Supervisor:
Dr Geoffrey Priestman

Research group:
Process Fluidics Group

Research

In recent years, the aerospace industry has been pointing towards the use of fluidic devices to increase the reliability and performance of its engines, given that fluidic devices use fluid phenomena such as the Coanda effect and Vortex resistance instead of using mechanical bits that imply more complexity.

The research focused on the Switched Vortex Valve or SVV, which is one of the fluidic devices that have been identified to have potential uses in a jet engine for a particular application in the Secondary Air System control. Its operation principle is to switch between two resistance states, one known as normal state or low resistance state and another which is known as vortex state or high resistance state. The objective was to optimize the device to work under the required system conditions and test it in a full operational jet engine. A prototype of the device is currently being manufactured and will eventually be installed in a test jet engine sometime in 2013.