Josiah Knight
Associate Professor and Co-director, Energy & Environment Certificate; Associate-Director, Gendell Center
Josiah Knight, Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering, is Co-Director of the Energy and Environment Certificate, a program that prepares students to confront complex problems in providing safe, clean, reliable and affordable energy. The curriculum brings together students from arts and sciences as well as engineering in a series of courses spanning natural science, social science and technology, culminating in a capstone course in which multidisciplinary teams design, build, test and evaluate energy system prototypes. In the process, students learn to communicate across a spectrum of backgrounds and interests, as they must do to address energy problems in the larger world.
Knight's current research interests are in solar thermal energy and alternate propulsion methods for ground transportation. Solar thermal energy, in addition to direct uses for space, water and industrial heating, has been shown to be an efficient means of electricity generation. Much progress has been made in recent years on fault-tolerant solar thermal collectors, and integration of such systems with distributed power generation is a promising path toward low-carbon electricity.
Alternatives to the gasoline and diesel internal combustion engine have potential to expand the range of fuels that can be efficiently used for transportation and stationary power. A major issue in the development of biofuels for ICEs is that much of the heating value of the biomass is consumed in transforming the solids to liquid fuels. Burning solid biomass directly delivers greater net energy, but must be done in external combustion. Activity in this area is presently focused on optimizing performance of external combustion engines by using adaptive intake and exhaust porting and closed-loop valve control. The area is rich in both applied and basic questions that couple thermodynamics and electro-mechanical dynamics in nonlinear regimes.
Contact Information:
- Office Location: 175 Hudson Hall
- Office Phone: (919) 660-5337
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Email Address:
Education:
| PhD | University of Virginia | 1986 |
| MS | University of Virginia | 1982 |
| BS | University of Virginia | 1980 |
Research Interests:
Fluid mechanics, thermodynamics, heat transfer, and dynamics
Specialties:
Lubrication
Fluid Mechanics
Thermodynamics
Alternative Energy
Controls
Vibration
Nonlinear Systems
Awards, Honors, and Distinctions:
- Fellow, Society of Tribologists and Lubrication Engineers
- P. M. Ku Award, Society of Tribologists and Lubrication Engineers
Courses Taught:
- ME 461.01 - ENERGY ENG AND ENVIRONMENT
- ME 490.01 - SPECIAL TOPICS
Representative Publications: (More Publications)
- D. Richter, D. Jenkins, J. Karakesh, J. Knight, L. McCreery, K. Nemestothy, Wood Energy in America, Science, vol 323 (March 13, 2009), pp. 1432-1433.
- J. D. Knight, Strategic plan guides STLE toward future success - New mission statement is first step, Lubrication Engineering, vol 58 no. 4 (2002), pp. 5 -- +.
- J. D. Knight and P. Ghadimi, Analysis and observation of cavities in a journal bearing considering flow continuity, Tribology Transactions, vol 44 no. 1 (2001), pp. 88 -- 96 [abs].
- Knight, Josiah D. and Ghadimi, Parviz, Analysis and observation of cavities in a journal bearing considering flow continuity, Tribology Transactions, vol 44 no. 1 (2001), pp. 88 - 96 [abs].
- Ecker, Horst and Knight, Josiah D. and Wu, Lan, Nonlinear dynamic simulation of an active magnetic bearing system with non-symmetric coordinate coupling forces, American Society of Mechanical Engineers (Paper) (1997), pp. 8 - [abs].