Miles Greiner

Miles Greiner received his Ph.D. from MIT in 1986, where he helped develop the concept of hydrodynamic resonance.  He joined the faculty at the University of Nevada, Reno (UNR) that same year, and is currently Foundation Professor of Mechanical Engineering, and a Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME).  He received the Lemelson Award for Innovation from the College of Engineering in 2008.  Dr. Greiner served as Mechanical Engineering Department Chair from July 2016 to June 2020, and Interim Mechanical Engineering Department Chair from July 2012 to June 2013, and August 2014 to June 2016.  Earlier, he served as the Interim Director of the University's Renewable Energy Center July 2011 to March 2013.

Dr. Greiner has taught graduate and undergraduate thermal science courses, engineering mathematics, and has developed innovative, low-cost methods of teaching instrumentation and experimentation. He received educational funding from the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) for the enhanced development of Introduction to Combustion (ME 475/675). He is a co-principal educator, along with Professor Dev Chidambaram, of the University of Nevada, Reno Graduate Fellowship Program on Thermal and Material Science for Nuclear Power, funded by the NRC. The University of Nevada, Reno Alumni Association recognized Professor Greiner as the Outstanding College of Engineering Senior Mentor in 1989 and 2001.

Professor Greiner has written extensively about channel topographies and flow conditions that enhance single-phase heat transfer at low Reynolds numbers without increasing pumping power. His experiments and simulations have documented the development and decay of normally dormant two-dimensional Tollmien-Schlichting waves, and the subsequent development of three-dimensional mixing. These works have led to a basic understanding of flows in which heat transfer augmentation is not coupled with increased pumping power. The National Science Foundation, the Gas Research Institute, the United Technologies Research Center, and the US DOE have funded this work.

Professor Greiner and his students are currently developing and experimentally benchmarking computational fluid dynamics models of the conduction, convection and radiation transport within the interior of used nuclear fuel packages. The models will be used to assure the fuel cladding temperatures within these packages do not exceed safe limits under the pressurized conditions used during fuel storage and transport, and the rarefied conditions used during fuel drying and transfer operations. The US Department of Energy funds this work.

Dr. Greiner has also performed large-scale experiments and computational studies of heat transfer to massive objects engulfed in pool fires. This work has focused on the interaction between fires, the surrounding wind conditions and engulfed objects. It has led to an understanding of the thermal radiation properties of fires as well as the accuracy of inverse-conduction techniques used to measure heat flux in fires. He has used this work as a basis to estimate the response of truck- and railcar-sized used nuclear fuel transport packages under severe accident conditions. The DOE, Sandia National Laboratories, the Nevada Nuclear Waste Project Office, and Innovative Technologies Solutions Corporation have funded this work. Based on publications in this area, he received an award for co-authoring the Outstanding Operations, Applications, and Components Technical Paper at the 2003 ASME Pressure Vessel and Piping Conference, and the G.E.O. Widera Literature Award for co-authoring the Outstanding Technical Paper in the 2004 ASME Journal of Pressure Vessel Technology.

In addition to these topics, Dr. Greiner has performed research to develop models of polyurethane foam under fire accident conditions (funded by Argonne National Laboratories), proprietary research in the areas of gas turbine engine film cooling (for Pratt Whitney), and advanced hydrogen reformer design (for Hydrogen Burner Technologies Corporation).

Professor Greiner has performed extensive government service by assessing the adequacy of Federal Relations that specify the performance of used nuclear fuel transport packages in severe accidental fires. The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the Nevada Nuclear Waste Project Office have funded this service.

Download Dr. Greiner's full CV

• Ph.D., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1986
• M.S., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1982
• B.S., University of California, Berkeley, 1979

• University of Nevada, Reno, Senior Mentor Faculty Award, 1989
• University of Nevada, Reno, Senior Mentor Faculty Award, 2000
• Outstanding Operations, Applications, and Components Technical Paper at the 2003 ASME Pressure Vessel and Piping Conference, Awarded July 28, 2004
• E.O. Widera Award for the 2004 Outstanding Technical Paper in the Journal of Pressure Vessel Technology, Awarded July 20, 2005
• Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, December 2006
• Lemelson Award for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, University of Nevada, Reno College of Engineering, Awarded May 6, 2008
• Foundation Professor, University of Nevada, Reno, 2016

• Standard Oil Chevron Research Company
  Research Engineer, June 1979 to December 1979
• Brunswick Defense Corporation
  Technical Staff, January 1980 to August 1980
• Massachusetts Institute of Technology
  Research Assistant, August 1980 to July 1986
• University of Nevada, Reno
        Assistant Professor, August 1986 to June 1991
        Associate Professor, July 1991 to June 2001
        Professor, July 2001 to present
  Interim Director, Renewable Energy Center,
         July 1, 2011 to March 15, 2013
  Interim Chair, Mechanical Engineering Department,
         July 1, 2012 to June 30, 2013
         September 2014 to June 2016
  Chair, Mechanical Engineering Department
         July 1, 2016 to present

Sabbatical leave positions

• United Technologies Research Center, January 1996 to July 1996
• Alion Science Innovative Technologies Solution, Corp., July 2002 to June 2003
• Argonne National Laboratories, September 2009 to May 2010