Cahit A. Evrensel
Associate Professor

Ph.D. 1985, Lehigh University, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, USA
MS 1980, BS 1976, Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey

Phone: (775) 784-6093
Fax: (775) 784-1701
Office: Palmer Engineering, Room 111
E-mail: cahit@unr.edu
Address: Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, MS 312; University of Nevada, Reno; Reno, NV 89557

Research/outreach areas

• Field controllable fluids and their applications in cancer therapy
• vibration control with application to washing machines
• Fluid dynamics and viscoelasticity with application to lung clearance and snowplowing visibility.

Relevant past experience

• Research funded by the US Department of Defense, Whitaker Foundation, Nevada Department of Transportation, Arcelik (a leading Turkish household appliance manufacturer); Research Scientist, Scientific and Technical Research Council of Turkey (1993-94); core faculty, graduate  program in biomechanical engineering, UNR (1994-present); chair of fourteen ASME conference sessions on respiratory fluid mechanics and lung clearance;

Awards and Honors

• Faculty Mentor, College of Engineering Senior Scholar, 2007; Fulbright scholar, 2004

Career Overview

Dr. Evrensel received his Ph.D. degree in Mechanical Engineering from the Lehigh University (Bethlehem, Pennsylvania) in May 2005.  He joined the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Nevada, Reno in August 1985. He taught undergraduate and graduate courses in different subjects including, Viscolelasticity, Vibrations, Fluid Mechanics, System Dynamics, Dynamics. During academic year 1993-94, he worked as a research scientist at the Scientific and Technical Research Council of Turkey.  He also worked as a visiting scholar in the department of Aerospace of Engineering at the Middle East Technical University and gave series of lectures and seminars in Turkey during spring 2004 semester.

His long-term bioengineering research, jointly with Dr. Peter Krumpe, MD, of Medical School, has focused on air-mucus interaction and cough clearance. Their laboratory experiments using simulated mucus indicated that more coherent mucus, as found in patients with different lung disease, may be cleared better than the more watery normal mucus by cough.  In other words “thickening” of mucus may be viewed as a response to an illness to make cough clearance more efficient as a back-up mechanism when muco-ciliary clearance fails. Their research also showed that the superimposed flow oscillations during a simulated cough increases the efficiency of cough clearance significantly, especially for more coherent mucus.

He has been working with a group of investigators from the Departments of Chemical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering and Microbiology and Immunology to investigate the feasibility of using magneto-rheological fluids (MRF) in a novel cancer therapy.  MRF is suspension of micron size iron particles in a carrier fluid. Their recent animal studies showed that intra-tumor injection of these fluids fallowed by an external magnetic field application slows down the tumor growth rate significantly compared to control group.  Dr. Evrensel’s current research concentrates on computational study of the response of MRF inside a tumor to externally applied magnetic field in order to predict and optimize the resulting stress on the neighboring tissue.

Dr. Evrensel also has been leading a research group in order to improve the visibility during high speed snow plowing.  Their research included computational modeling as well as laboratory and field experiments.  Implementations of their findings resulted in very significant improvement in visibility of the snow plowing truck by motoring public. 

His past research included safety of nuclear waste transportation, design and fabrication of controllable dampers for washing machine application. He also has been collaborating on different research areas such as hydrogen based fuel cells, application of MRF in controllable automotive dampers.