Mahdi Sani

Curriculum Vitae

Summary of skills
Education
Work Experience
Codes Developed
Selected Industrial Projects
Research Interests
Languages
Honors
Selected Publications
Thesis supervised
Other Activities

Summary of skills

CFD: Code development, C++ , Dynamic mesh, Fluid-Solid interaction (FSI), Aerosol transport, FVM, Polyhedral grid, Large Eddy Simulation (LES), Turbulence, Combustion, Micro-Fluidics, Fuel Cells, Bio-Fluidics, Parallel Processing, GPU, Sparse Solvers, Electrokinetics, Electrocemistry, Multiphysics, Modelling complex phenomena, FEM-fluids.
Programming: Expert in: C++, Fortran, Matlab, Familiar with: Python and Java.
Familiar with: Design patterns, Agile development (Scrum, Kanban).
Teaching:
- Graduate level: CFD, FEM-Fluids, Fuel Cell Technology, Advanced Fluid Mechanics, Aerosol, Advanced Numerical Analysis, Continuum Mechanics.
- UG level: Programming, Thermodynamics, Fluid Mechanics, Heat Transfer, Statics.
Engineering: Power plant systems, Piping, HVAC, Fuel systems, Filtration, Cranes, Shipyard development, Procurement of industrial machinery, Construction of conventional and unconventional facilities like dry-dock.
Software skills: Expert in: Ansys/Fluent, Comsol, Tecplot, Paraview, LaTeX, Office, Windows, Linux, Matlab, Mathematica, AutoCAD, Caesar II, HAP (Carrier), Pipnet.
Eager to work with any software required.
Soft Skills: Problem-solving, Self-motivation, Flexibility, Effective communication, Teamwork, Time management, Leadership, Forward thinking.

Education

PhD, Sharif University of Technology, Mechanical Engineering, 2005 – 2011
Highlights: CFD, Ployhedral Dynamic Mesh, Aerosol, Code development, Rayan, C++, Bio-fluidics, Immersed Boundary
Courses: Aerosol, Turbulence, Advanced Combustion, Neural Networks, Acoustics, Turbocharging, Turbulence Modelling (audited)
PhD thesis title: Developing a Roadmap for Whole Lung Modeling and Some of the Required Software
Supervisor: Prof. Mohammad Said Saidi (mssaidi@sharif.edu)
MSc, Sharif University of Technology, Mechanical Engineering, 2002 – 2005
Highlights: CFD, Code development, C, Turbulence, LES, Buoyant plume, Free convection
Courses: Turbulent Shear Flows, Advanced Thermodynamics, Finite Element in Fluids, Parallel Processing, Advanced Fluid Mechanics
MSc thesis title: A Study on Large Structures of Buoyant Plume Using LES
Supervisor: Prof. Siamak Kazemzadeh Hannani (hannani@sharif.edu)
BSc, University of Tabriz, Mechanical Engineering, 1997 – 2002
Highlights: CFD, FEM (Ansys), Power plant, Internal Combustion Engine, Gas Turbine
Courses: Power Plant Design, Gas Turbine and Jet Engine, Design of Internal Combustion Engines, Heat Exchanger Design, Turbomachinery, Gas Dynamics
Volunteer activities: Elected head and a member of governing board- Scientific and Research Association of Mechanical Engineering Students, SRAMES (one semester), Founding member and person in charge- Aerospace studies committee- SRAMES (one year)
Summer Internship: Tabriz Thermal Power Plant (steam and gas turbine units)

Work Experience

Assistant Professor at Sharif University of Technology-Kish International Campus, September 2009 – Present
Courses offered (all in English):
- Graduate: CFD, Aerosol, Micro/Nano Flows, Fuel Cell, FEM-Fluids, Advanced Numerical Analysis, Continuum Mechanics, Adv Fluid Mechanics.
- Undergraduate: C++ programming, Numerical Analysis, Fluid Mechanics, Thermodynamics, Heat Transfer, Statics and Mechanics of Materials.
Actively contributed in university management in several positions including:
Vice Chancellor for Finance and Administration (VCFA) 2017-2019 (24 months)
- Managing finance, administration, logistics, IT/Network, service laboratory departments. Member of campus governing board and board of trustees’ continuous committee.
- During this time, I was also actively involved in an extra activity of construction management of a residential complex for the faculty and staff (11000 m2) as a member of steering and technical committee.
Internal Supervision Manager 2016-2019 (30 months)
Graduate Dean and Registrar 2013-2015 (24 months)
Managing graduate and under-graduate departments, resident and adjunct professor affairs, planning and running academic events (registrations, exams, graduation, defenses, special cases and …). Deployed and customized a new all-inclusive university automation software.
Division Head (Energy Conversion) 2009-2013 (48 months)
Member of: Education and graduate council (from 2009), Governing board (2017-2019)
Experienced in: Teaching, Research, Course development, Program development, Managing all sort of academic processes (student, faculty and staff related), Finance, Human Resources, Administrative Affairs, Construction, Logistics, Tenders, and Outsourcing.
Volunteer activities: During this time I also volunteered in a couple of team works in my former school including actively contributing in Ehsan foundation and bio-group (required monthly travels to attend meetings for five years, collecting information, holding presentations, involvement in training younger generation, Rayan code customization, proposal preparation, site visits, …).
Consulting engineer at Pargas Iran, March 2008 - September 2009
Served as a part time employee in Engineering Division (the division was involved mainly in oil and gas, and shipbuilding projects)
Example of activities:
- CFD simulation of an inclined shaft ship propeller (complex geometry, sliding mesh, multiple reference frames)
- CFD simulation of a class of media filters used in oil industry (multiple media elements in a single vessel, complex geometry, porous media with very low permeability)
- Basic design of a gas-jet-pump (transonic flow, entrainment, complex geometry)- Apart from the CFD simulation, a MATLAB code was developed for the basic design.
Mechanical engineer at Monenco Iran Consulting Engineers, May 2005 - May 2007
Served in Mech. B division. Worked as an active team member in south Isfahan gas turbine and Damavand, Kazeron, Yazd, Orumia, Neka and Kerman combined cycle power plant projects.
Main activities:
- Design and design review of piping systems (fuel gas, fuel oil, water, steam, compressed air, HVAC, chemicals), industrial and residential HVAC systems and crane facilities.
- Preparation and review of tender documents.

Codes Developed

Major research codes developed include:

Rayan (C++) 2007-Present: Polyhedral grid FVM, Collocated, ALE Dynamic Mesh, Sparse Solvers, Electro-kinetics, Immersed boundary (IBM) and sharp immersed interface*, Search algorithm*, Open boundary condition (OBC)*
* Including introduction of new methods during the development of the code.
Started during my PhD and still under continuous development; written from scratch to be efficient and accurate; used as the computational in-house code for many studies in our research teams.
LES code (C) 2003-2005: Non-orthogonal grid FVM, collocated, LES, Free Convection. Developed during my MSc.
Free Surface Tracking code (C) 2003-2004: Non-orthogonal grid FVM, collocated, Free Surface Tracking, Coarse to Fine Initialization.
Developed for an industrial client.

Apart from those listed above many other general or special purpose codes were developed to address needs from time to time. For instance, a Matlab code was developed for the basic design of gas-get-pumps (ejectors) while I was working in Pargs Iran Co. An interesting Mathematica code was developed for solving non-linear ODEs using homotopy analysis method when I was learning the method. I was always interested to automate the jobs by writing either general purpose or subject specific codes.

Selected Industrial Projects

Monenco Iran (2005-2007): Active team member in south Isfahan gas turbine and Damavand, Kazeron, Yazd, Orumia, Neka and Kerman combined cycle power plant projects. Work involved design and design review, holding inter and intra disciplinary meetings with colleagues, client and contractors, site visits, handling engineering challenges, … .
Sadra Island development (2007-2008): Sadra Company (IMICO) was already drying the sea to extend the Sadra Island for its new shipyard and offshore platform manufacturing facilities when I joined the project. I became an effective team member in technical assessment and procurement of ship-building factory equipment and construction of the dry-dock. The job required frequent site visits, meeting with vendors, negotiations with contractors and different disciplines inside the incorporation, … .
Pathology of erosion phenomenon in HPFWH of Shazand thermal power plant (2009-2010): Prepared proposal, Established project management procedures including document standards and workflow process, Coordinated project team, Managed and attended site visits, Handled negotiations with the client, Prepared and held presentations, Prepared two main reports (identifying the root cause and proposing solution), … .

Research Interests

CFD: Polyhedral FVM, Dynamic Meshes, Fluid/Structure Interaction (FSI), LES, Multi-Physics Modelling, Particle Tracking, Adaptive Meshes, Parallel Processing, GPU, Multi-Grid.
Energy: Direct Energy Conversion, Fuel Cell, Multiphysics Simulation, Electrochemistry, Green Energy, Energy Storage, Hydrogen Fuel, Transition to Green Energy.
Aerosol: Physics, Measurement, Simulation, Combustion, Interaction with Continuous Phase and Turbulence, Multi-Physics Phenomena like Electric Field Effects, Condensation and Evaporation, Droplet Formation.
Turbulence: Physics, Simulation (LES and DNS), Modelling, Interaction with other phenomena such as combustion, discontinuous phase and acoustic.
Micro-Fluidics: Electrokinetics, Electrophoresis, Dielectrophoresis (DEP), Lab-on-Chip (LOC), Micro-Mixers, Micro-Valves, Micro-Pumps.
Bio-Fluidics: Modelling biological systems, Living tissue, Targeted Drug delivery.
Eager to take on any new challenge.

Languages

English: PBT TOEFL score: 613 (2005)
- Serving at SUT-Kish International Campus from 2009 till present where the media of instruction is English
- Served at Monenco Iran (2005-2007) where the language of correspondence and technical documents was English.
Persian: Native
Turkish: Elementary
Arabic: Elementary (reading)

Honors

Ranked 1^st in PhD entrance exam (energy conversion), 2004, School of ME Eng., SUT.
Ranked 6^th in the first stage of 7th Olympiad for University students, 2002, Nationwide.
Ranked 6^th in the Mech. Eng. Competition for MSc Entrance (Energy Conversion), 2002, Nationwide (10000+ participants all holding BSc in Mech. Eng.).
Ranked 5^th in the Aerospace Eng. Competition for MSc Entrance, 2002, Nationwide.
Ranked 8^th in the Mech. Eng. Competition for MSc Entrance (Applied Design), 2002, Nationwide (10000+ participants all holding BSc in Mech. Eng.).
Ranked 3^rd at the Year of Graduation (Mech. Eng. Dept. Tabriz Univ.), 2002.

Selected Publications

Samyar Sarraf, Madjid Abbaspour, Kiarash M. Dolatshahi, Sadyar Sarraf, Mahdi Sani, Experimental investigation of hydrodynamic interaction between a squat submarine operating behind a ship, Ocean Engineering, Volume 279, 2023, 114559,https://doi.org/10.1016/j.oceaneng.2023.114559.
Samyar Sarraf, Madjid Abbaspour, Kiarash M. Dolatshahi, Sadyar Sarraf, Mahdi Sani, Hydrodynamic interaction of a squat submarine towed by a marine vessel: Experimental investigation, Ocean Engineering, Volume 271, 2023, 113736, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.oceaneng.2023.113736.
Sadyar Sarraf, Madjid Abbaspour, Kiarash M. Dolatshahi, Samyar Sarraf, Mahdi Sani, Experimental and numerical investigation of squat submarines hydrodynamic performances, Ocean Engineering, Volume 266, Part 2, 2022, 112849, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.oceaneng.2022.112849.
K. Maleki Bagherabadi , M. Sani, M.S. Saidi, Numerical Analysis of Some Active and Passive Electro-Kinetic Micro-Mixers by Applying Poisson-Nernst-Planck and Navier–Stokes (PNP-NSE) Equations, Modares Mechanical Engineering. 2019;19 (8):2057-2066 (in Persian) link.
K. Maleki Bagherabadi, M. Sani, M. S. Saidi, Enhancing Active Electro-Kinetic Micro-Mixer Efficiency by Introducing Vertical Electrodes and Modifying Chamber Aspect Ratio, Chemical Engineering and Processing - Process Intensification, 2019, page 107560, ISSN 0255-2701, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cep.2019.107560.
K. Maleki Bagherabadi, M Sani, M.S. Saidi, Numerical Analysis of a Class of Active Electro-Kinetic Micro-Mixer by Applying Poisson- Nernst-Planck and Naiver-Stokes (PNP-NSE) Equations, 25th Annual Conference of Mechanical Engineering ISME 2017, Tehran, link.
A. Shaygani, M.S. Saidi, M. Sani, Aerosol nano-particle charger simulations and optimizations, Scientia Iranica, Trans. B (2016) 23(5), 2220-2229.
M. Zahraei, M.S. Saidi, M. Sani, Numerical simulation of electro-deposition process influenced by force convection and migration of ions, Journal of Electroanalytical Chemistry 782 (2016) 117–124.
R. Saifi, A. Shaygani, M. Sani, M.S. Saidi, CFD Aided Procedure for Optimizing Electrical Mobility Spectrometer, Defect and Diffusion Forum, Vol 366, 2016, Pages 73-87, 10120386 (ISSN).
Shaygani, R. Saifi, M.S. Saidi, M. Sani, On the Optimality Assessment of Nano-Particle Size Spectrometry and its Association to the Entropy Concept, International Journal of Mathematical, Computational, Physical, Electrical and Computer Engineering, Vol 9, No 7, Pages 334-339, 2015.
Hemmatifar, M.S. Saidi, A. Sadeghi, M. Sani, Continuous Size-Based Focusing and Bifurcating Microparticle Streams Using a Negative Dielectrophoretic System, Microfluidics and Nanofluidics, 14(1-2) 265-276, 2013.
M. Sani, M.S. Saidi, Rayan: a polyhedral grid co-located incompressible finite volume solver (part I: basic design features), Scientia Iranica, Trans. B: Mechanical Eng. Vol. 17, No. 6, pp. 443-455, 2010.
M. Sani, M.S. Saidi, A lagged implicit segregated data reconstruction procedure to treat open boundaries, Journal of Computational Physics, Vol. 229 (2010) 5418–5431.
M. Zendehbad, M.S. Saidi, M. Sani, Cavitation risk assessment for the tube-sheets of HPFW heaters of Shazand TPP, IPG2010 Proceeding.
M. Zendehbad, M. S. Saidi, M. Sani, Effect of geometric hysteresis in lung deformation on irreversibility in trajectories of fine inhaled particles, Proc. ASME 2010 10th Biennial Conference on Engineering Systems Design and Analysis, EDSA2010, July 12-14, 2010, Istanbul, Turkey.
M. Sani, Pathology of erosion phenomenon in HPFWH of Shazand thermal power plant, Final report, West power Co., 2010.
M. Sani, Pathology of erosion phenomenon in HPFWH of Shazand thermal power plant, Work Progress report, West power Co., 2010.
M. Sani, M.S. Saidi, A set of particle locating algorithms not requiring face belonging to cell connectivity data, Journal of Computational Physics, Vol. 228 (2009) 7357–7367.
M. Sani, S.K. Hannani, A Study on Large Structures of Buoyant Plume Using LES, ISME/FD2008 Proceeding.
M. Sani, Free Surface Tracking Procedure Validation, Internal report, Marine Eng. Lab. Center of Excellence in Energy Conversion, Sharif University of Technology, 2004.
M. Sani, NSE Solver Validation, Internal report, Marine Eng. Lab. Center of Excellence in Energy Conversion, Sharif University of Technology, 2004.
M. Sani, First Report of Floating Bodies Numerical Drag Prediction, Internal report, Marine Eng. Lab. Center of Excellence in Energy Conversion, Sharif University of Technology, 2003.
M. Sani, Solution to problems of mechanics of materials (I), Book in Persian, Ashina Publication, Tabriz, 2002.
M. Sani, R. Gharaie, Y. Moradzadeh, Solution to problems of classical thermodynamics (I), Book in Persian, Ashina Publication, Tabriz, 2000.

Thesis supervised

Danesh Sekezanan Haghighi, Modification of Lung-Type Flow Field Design in a Bio-Inspired Fuel Cell to Remove the Dead Flow Regions and Increase Current Density, 2024
Yalda Mehrabian, A Dynamic Mesh Computational Fluid Dynamics Model of Lung on a Chip, 2021.
Ahmadreza Omidvar, Numerical Simulation and Characterization of a Micro-mixer with Moving Walls, Supervisors: M.S. Saidi, M.Sani, 2016.
Kamyar Maleki, Numerical Simulation and Analysis of Active Electro¬-Kinetic Micro-Mixer, Supervisors: M.S. Saidi, M.Sani, 2016.
Sepideh Ghaderian, Numerical Simulation and Characterization of an electro-kinetic micro-mixer, Supervisors: M.S. Saidi, M.Sani, 2015.
Maryam Khademi, Numerical simulation of microchannel for counting cells based on the impedance measurement of cell lysate, Supervisors: M.S. Saidi, M.Sani, 2015.
Salim Mirshahi, Effects of square electrical pulses on forcing silver nanoparticles into cancer cells: a simulation study, Supervisors: M.S. Saidi, M.Sani, 2015.
Pouya Mehrdel, Numerical Simulation of Organ on Chip Systems, Supervisors: M.S. Saidi, M.Sani, 2014.
Maysam Yavari, Design and Simulation of a Microfluidic Blood Cells Counting Device, Supervisors: M.S. Saidi, M.Sani, 2014.
Neda Rahimi, Filtration Based on Electrostatic Devices, Supervisors: M.S. Saidi, M.Sani, 2014.
Akbar Gholami, An Investigation on Supersonic Separation Technology, Supervisors: M.S. Saidi, M.Sani, 2014.
Reza Saifi, Electrical Mobility Spectrometer Modeling and Design, Supervisors: M.S. Saidi, M.Sani, 2013.
Afshin Shaygani, Charging and Neutralizing Aerosol Particles, Supervisors: M.S. Saidi, M.Sani, 2013.
Davood Alipour, Modeling , Simulation and Characterization of Pressurized Reservoir Insulin Pump, Supervisors: M.S. Saidi, M.Sani, 2012.
Arezou Masoumi, Modeling, Simulation and Characterization of Blood Treatment and Filtration Process in Home Hemodialysis Machines, Supervisors: M.S. Saidi, M.Sani, 2012.
Navid Kermanshahi, Cascade Impactor modeling and design, Supervisors: M.S. Saidi, M.Sani, 2011.
Armin Bodaghkhani, Analysis and modeling “Time of flight Particle Sizer” with CFD, Supervisors: M.S. Saidi, M.Sani, 2011.

Other Activities

Swimming, Biking, Playing santor (learning since 2017), Traveling, Persian poetry (regularly attending weekly poet night meetings since 2014), Studying phycology, Religion history, History of modern wars, Amateur photography.