Dr. Andrew Sommers is a Professor in the Department of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering.

He earned his Ph.D. degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign in 2007, his M.S. in mechanical engineering from the University of Illinois in 2003, and his B.S. in mechanical engineering from Clemson University in 2001.

He also spent approximately one year working as a process co-op engineer at Celanese Acetate in Narrows, VA.

Since entering academia, he has also spent significant time working as a researcher at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, OH on thermal management related issues within the Aerospace Systems Directorate.

Dr. Sommers’ research primarily deals with air-side heat transfer and the impact of surface wettability on condensate retention, frost growth, and heat transfer performance in HVAC&R systems. His current research interests also include micro-fabrication and surface coating techniques, ferrofluids, gas turbine systems, and the use of surface tension gradients to facilitate water droplet movement in preferred directions on surfaces.

He has authored or co-authored more than 65 archival journal arti cles and conference proceedings and has had his research funded by the American Chemical Society (ACS), American Society of Heating, Refrigerating, and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE), California Energy Commission, and the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD). In 2017, his conference paper on frost layer densification received the Best Research Paper Award at the 2nd Thermal and Fluids Engineering Conference sponsored by the American Society of Thermal and Fluids Engineers (ASTFE).

In 2012, Andrew was awarded the Arthur Olson Generational Teaching Excellence Award by the College of Engineering and Computing, and in 2008, he was awarded the ASHRAE New Investigator Award.

He primarily teaches courses in the thermal-fluids area including Heat Transfer, Fluid Mechanics, and Thermodynamics II.

• Professor, 2021–present
• Associate Professor, 2013–2021
• Assistant Professor, 2007—2013

• Air Force Summer Faculty Fellowship (AFRL/ASEE), Propulsion Directorate, Wright Patterson Air Force Base, OH, Summer 2008, Summer 2009.
• MechSE Teaching Fellow – Mechanical Science and Engineering Department, University of Illinois, Urbana, IL, Spring 2007.
• Research / Teaching Assistant – Mechanical Science and Engineering Department, University of Illinois, Urbana, IL, 2001—2007.
• Process Engineering Co-op – Hoechst-Celanese/Celanese Acetate Corp., Narrows, VA, Summer 1997, Spring 1998, Fall 1998.

• ASME – American Society of Mechanical Engineers
• ASHRAE – American Society of Heating, Refrigerating, & Air-Conditioning Engineers
• ACS – American Chemical Society

• CEC Outstanding Faculty Research Award, 2020
• Miami University Committee on Faculty Research Award, 2012—2013
• Arthur Olson Generational Teaching Excellence Award, Miami University, 2012
• ASHRAE New Investigator Award, 2008—2009
• Miami University Committee on Faculty Research Award, 2008—2009
• UIUC Mechanical Science & Engineering Teaching Fellowship, Spring 2007
• UIUC M&IE / MechSE Outstanding Scholar Fellowship, 2001—2007

Miami University (Selected examples)

• Chair, MME Faculty Search Committee, 2013—2014.
• Member, MME/ECE-ENT Committee, 2013—present.
• Member, MME CS&E Graduate Program Committee, 2009—present.
• Director, Thermal-Fluids Laboratory, 2007—present.
• Judge and Panel Member, Miami University Interdisciplinary Technology Development Challenge (MUITDC), 2008—2012.
• Member, SEAS Research Council, 2008—2011.
• Member, Faculty Search Committee, 2009—2010.

National

• ASHRAE Annual Conference, Seminar 5, Denver, CO, June 23, 2013, seminar speaker
• 14 ^th International Heat Transfer Conference (IHTC-14), Washington D.C., 2010, session chair
• 7 ^th International Conference on Enhanced, Compact, and Ultra-Compact Heat Exchangers (ECI-CHE), Heredia, Costa Rica, 2009, session chair
• Reviewer for Langmuir, Applied Thermal Engineering, International Journal of Refrigeration, Chemical Engineering Communications, Heat Transfer Engineering, International Journal of Multiphase Flow, Energy Conversion and Management, ASME Journal of Thermal Science and Engineering Applications

• NSF Faculty Early Career Development Program, proposal writing workshop, 2011
• CELT New Faculty Teaching Enhancement Program, 2008—2008
• 27 ^th International Lilly Conference on College Teaching, 2007

• Sommers, A.D., Brest, T.J., Eid, K.F., 2013, “Topography-Based Surface Tension Gradients to Facilitate Water Droplet Movement on Laser-Etched Copper Substrates,” Langmuir, Vol. 29, pp. 12043-12050.
• Alheshibri, M.H., Rogers, N.G., Sommers, A.D., Eid, K.F., 2013, “Spontaneous Movement of Water Droplets on Patterned Cu and Al Surfaces with Wedge-Shaped Gradients,” Applied Physics Letters, Vol. 102, 174103.
• Sommers, A.D., Yerkes, K.L., 2013, “Using Micro-Structural Surface Features to Enhance the Convective Flow Boiling Heat Transfer of R-134a on Aluminum,” International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer, Vol. 64, pp. 1053-1063.
• Yu, R., Sommers, A.D., Okamoto, N.C., 2013, “Effect of a Micro-Grooved Fin Surface Design on the Air-Side Thermal-Hydraulic Performance of a Plain Fin-and-Tube Heat Exchanger,” International Journal of Refrigeration, Vol. 36, pp. 1078-1089.
• Gossard, J.J.,Han, X., Ramalingam, M., Sommers, A.D., 2013, “Investigating the Thermal-Hydraulic Performance of New Refrigerant Mixtures through Numerical Simulation of Minichannel and Microchannel Evaporators,” Applied Thermal Engineering, Vol. 50, pp. 1291-1298.
• Sommers, A.D., Yu, R., Okamoto, N.C., Upadhyayula, K., 2012, “Condensate Drainage Performance of a Plain Fin-and-Tube Heat Exchanger Constructed from Anisotropic Micro-grooved Fins,” International Journal of Refrigeration, Vol. 35, pp. 1766-1778.
• Sommers, A.D., Ying, J., Eid, K.F., 2012, “Predicting the Onset of Condensate Droplet Departure From a Vertical Surface Due to Air Flow— Applications to Topographically-Modified, Micro-Grooved Surfaces,” Experimental Thermal and Fluid Science, Vol. 40, pp. 38-49.
• Han, X., Wang, Q., Park, Y., T’Joen, C., Sommers, A., Jacobi, A., 2012, “A Review of Metal Foam and Metal Matrix Composites for Heat Exchangers and Heat Sinks,” Heat Transfer Engineering, Vol. 33, Issue 12, pp. 991-1009.
• Wang, Q., Han, X.H., Sommers, A., Park, Y., T’Joen, C., Jacobi, A., 2012, “A review on application of carbonaceous materials and carbon matrix composites for heat exchangers and heat sinks,” International Journal of Refrigeration, Vol. 35, pp. 7-26.
• Sommers, A.D., 2011, “Methodology for Calculating the Volume of Condensate Droplets on Topographically Modified, Microgrooved Surfaces,” Langmuir, Vol. 27, Issue 9, pp. 5523-5533.
• Sommers, A., Wang, Q., Han, X., T’Joen, C., Park, Y., Jacobi, A., 2010, “Ceramics and Ceramic Matrix Composites for Heat Exchangers in Advanced Thermal Systems-A Review,” Applied Thermal Engineering , Vol. 30 Issue 11-12, pp. 1277-1291.
• Hamilton, C., Dymek, S., and Sommers, A., 2010, “Characteristic Temperature Curves for Aluminum Alloys during Friction Stir Welding,” Welding Journal, Vol. 89, Issue 9, pp. 189S-194S.
• Sommers, A.D., Yerkes, K.L., 2010, “Experimental Investigation into the Convective Heat Transfer and System-Level Effects of Al ₂O ₃-Propanol Nanofluid,” Journal of Nanoparticle Research, Vol. 12, Issue 3, pp. 1003-1014.
• T’Joen, C., Park, Y. Wang, Q., Sommers, A., Han, X., and Jacobi, A., 2009, “A Review on Polymer Heat Exchangers for HVAC&R Applications,” International Journal of Refrigeration, Vol. 32, No. 5, pp. 763-779.
• Lanzarotta, A., Baumann, L., Story, G., Witkowski, M., Khan, F., Sommers, A., and Sommer, A., 2009, “Rapid Molecular Imaging using Attenuated Total Reflectance Planar Array Infrared Spectroscopy for the Analysis of Counterfeit Pharmaceutical Tablets,” Applied Spectroscopy, Vol. 63, Issue 9, pp. 979-991.
• Hamilton, C., Dymek, S., and Sommers, A., 2009, “A Thermal Model of Friction Stir Welding Applied to Sc-Modified Al-Zn-Mg-Cu Alloy Extrusions,” International Journal of Machine Tools and Manufacture, Vol. 49, pp. 230-238.
• Sommers, A.D. and Jacobi, A.M., 2008, “Wetting phenomena on micro-grooved aluminum surfaces and modeling of the critical droplet size,” Journal of Colloid and Interface Science, 328(2), pp. 402-411.
• Hamilton, C., Dymek, S., and Sommers, A., 2008, “A Thermal Model of Friction Stir Welding in Aluminum Alloys,” International Journal of Machine Tools and Manufacture, vol. 48 no.10, pp. 1120-1130. 
• Sommers, A.D. and Jacobi, A.M., 2006, “Creating micro-scale surface topology to achieve anisotropic wettability on an aluminum surface,” Journal of Micromechanics and Microengineering, 16(8), pp. 1571-1578.
• Sommers, A.D. and Jacobi, A.M., 2006, “An exact solution to steady heat conduction in a two-dimensional annulus on a one-dimensional fin: application to frosted heat exchangers with round tubes,” Journal of Heat Transfer, 128, pp. 397-404.
• Sommers, A.D. and Jacobi, A.M., 2005, “Air-side heat transfer enhancement of a refrigerator evaporator using vortex generation,” International Journal of Refrigeration, 28(7), pp. 1006-1017.