Air and water, essential elements sustaining human life, are media of energy transport in perspective of engineering. In our daily lives, a representative and important case that uses transport phenomena of heat and fluid occurs in a power plant that converts heat energy into electricity. Thermal power station (using coal or natural gas) and nuclear power plant (using nuclear fission energy) utilize different energy sources, however they boil water to generate steam and operate turbine to produce electricity. Considering that thermal efficiency of power plant is around 30 to 50%, we can think of at least twice to three times of heat energy is generated in the power plant.

The Thermal Hydraulics & Energy (THE) System Laboratory led by professor HangJin Jo at the Department of Mechanical Engineering, POSTECH, studies energy generation and energy-efficient system design based on researches on heat and fluid flow. Specifically, researches on enhancing heat transfer performance by modifying surface structure characteristics and cooling channel design for nuclear fusion reactors have been proceeded. Besides, in line with increased focus on nuclear safety after the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster in Japan, the THE system laboratory has designed a new concept of nuclear power system for achieving enhanced nuclear safety.

Research findings of the THE system laboratory contribute to not only improving thermal efficiency and safety of power plants but also any energy system design. For instance, they can be applied to chip-cooling of mobile devices and heat exchanger design for hydrogen production system or LNG system. In addition to the energy industry, understanding of fluid transport phenomena is also used everywhere in systems where fluid exists such as biological engineering. Currently, the THE system laboratory studies on phase change and thermal hydraulic characteristics through an integrated approach of combining experimental and numerical methods and plans to build global competitiveness with optimal energy system design.