Laird C. Brodie
Professor Emeritus of Physics

Office Phone: (503) 725 - 3830

Office Location: 10 Science Building 1

Email: brodiel@pdx.edu

Research Interests

Dr. Brodie's research, in cooperation with Drs. Jack Semura and Erik Bodegom, involved the study of boiling heat transfer and nucleation of the vapor phase in the cryogens, liquid nitrogen and liquid helium. Information of this type has an important bearing on the growing interest in using the phenomenon of superconductivity to increase the efficiency of the production, transmission, and storage of electrical energy. At the present time superconducting materials must be refrigerated in liquid helium or liquid nitrogen, and since the boiling characteristics of a liquid can affect its efficiency as a coolant, a quantitative understanding of heat transfer and boiling in liquid helium and liquid nitrogen is necessary for the design of superconducting devices. Dr. Brodie also has been cooperating with Drs. Semura and Bodegom on experiments designed to measure the tensile strength of liquid helium and liquid nitrogen.

In addition to the work involving cryogenic liquids, Dr. Brodie collaborated with Dr. Curt Mitchell at the Oregon Hearing Research Center on studies in cochlear mechanics. This work involved the application of Fourier analysis to the solution of problems arising in the clinical analysis of hearing loss. A computer program has been developed which employs a two component transfer function to calculate the basilar membrane motion resulting from any arbitrary acoustic stimulus.

Selected Publications

Mathematical Model for the Boiling Heat Transfer from a Thin Wire in Liquid Nitrogen, C. Fusco, E. Bodegom, J.S. Semura, and L.C. Brodie, Adv. Cryog. Eng. 43A, (1998), 1289

Calculating Basilar Membrane Motion with a Two Component Transfer Function. Laird Brodie and Curtin Mitchell, presented at the meeting of the Association for Research in Otolaryngology, February 5-9, 1995, St. Petersburg Beach, Florida.

Novel Approach to the Analysis of Fluctuations in Steady-State Nucleate Boiling. Eric W. Roth, J.S. Semura, L.C. Brodie and Erik Bodegom, Adv. Cryog. Eng. 39:1741 (1994).

Suppression of the Premature Transition to Film Boiling in LN2 using Forced Convection. E.W. Roth, E. Bodegom, L.C. Brodie and J.S. Semura, Adv. Cryog. Eng. 37A:197 (1992).

Transient Heat Transfer in Liquid Nitrogen. E.W. Roth, E. Bodegom, L.C. Brodie and J.S. Semura, Adv. in Cryog. Eng. 35:447 (1990).

Tensile Strength of Liquid Helium Four. J.A. Nissen, E. Bodegom, L.C. Brodie and J.S. Semura, Phys. Rev. B40:6617 (1989).

Homogeneous Nucleation Temperature of Liquid Helium Three. D. Lezak, L.C. Brodie, J.S. Semura and E. Bodegom, Phys. Rev. B37:150 (1988).

Liquid-to-Vapor Homogeneous Nucleation in Liquid Nitrogen. D.N. Sinha, L.C. Brodie and J.S. Semura, Phys. Rev. B36:4082 (1987).