Antonio Cervantes
Ph.D. Student in Civil and Environmental Engineering
Boundary Layers and Turbulence Lab @ UC Irvine
Biography
Hey there! I’m a first year Ph.D. student of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the Boundary Layers and Turbulence Lab, UC Irvine. My research focuses on atmospheric-forest canopy flows and its effect on wildfires. Please see my site for info on my research experience and interests.
Interests
- Wildfire Science
- Computational Modeling
- Fluid Dynamics
Education
Ph.D. in Civil and Environmental Engineering, Present
University of California, Irvine
M.S. in Mechanical Engineering, 2023
San Jose State University
B.S. in Mechanical Engineering, 2021
San Jose State University
Skills
Technical
Python
Matlab
UNIX
High Performance Computing (HPC)
Git/Github
Software
PALM LES
Xcompact3d
Ansys Fluent
Fusion 360
Experience
Forest Canopy Wildfire Turbulence
- Research the impact of forest canopy heterogeneity on atmospheric flows and wildfires
- Validate PALM LES codes with experimental velocity data from the Amazon rainforest
- Simulate flows through forest canopy gaps of various sizes
Wildfire Ember Transport
- Investigated the influence of turbulence intensity on wildfire ember (firebrand) landing distribution for an improved understanding of spot fire generation and wildfire spread
- Conducted large eddy simulation (LES) of channel flow at several turbulence intensities using high-fidelity CFD codes
- Created a data visualization pipeline for statistical analysis of particle landing distribution
- Developed novel integration of firebrand transport with wildfire model for full physics spot fire generation simulations
Wildfire Bio-Aerosol Transport
- Developed numerical DEM simulation of more than 5 million bio-aerosols to understand deposition of pathogen-laden particles during a wildfire event for an NSF-funded research project
- Leveraged Python acceleration and parallelization libraries to optimize code for a 99% increase in computation speed
- Created Python functions for data-driven particle generation at fire locations for improved physics
- Developed processing tools for large data visualizations and animations of more than 100 million data points
- Collaborated with an interdisciplinary team to publish a novel biological emissions factor research paper
Accomplishments
Graduate Fellowship in Areas of National Need (GAANN)
Fellowship for the 23/24 school year where I am required to conduct 3 teaching assitantships during my PhD at UCI, and develop new skills and gain mentorship in teaching.
Davidson Student Scholar
Recieved scholarship which required completion of master’s thesis by the end of the Spring 2023 semester and poster presentation in the annual College of Engineering 2023 Student Showcase and Celebration. See poster
Dierks-Morgan Scholarship
Digital Fabrication Student Design Challenge Winner
Competed in the Summer 2022 Autodesk Instructable design challenge where I designed an aerodynamic upgrade package for my RC car which improved its top speed. My entry placed as a finalist in the Runner Up category. See my entry here
Projects
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Large eddy simulation of horizontally homogeneous forest canopy for validation of PALM.
Large eddy simulation of horizontally homogeneous forest canopy for validation of PALM.
An example of linking directly to an external project website using
external_link.
Recent Publications
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(2019).
An example preprint / working paper.
PDF Code Dataset Poster Slides Video Source Document Custom Link
(2015).
An example journal article.
Journal of Source Themes, 1(1).
Contact
Feel free to contact me if you have any questions!