PNNL

Xiaoliang “Bryan” He is a mechanical engineer in the Operational System Engineering (OSE) group of the Energy and Environment Directorate (EED) at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL). His primary backgrounds are computational fluid dynamics (CFD), turbulence and turbulent modeling, multiphase flows, subsurface transport and flow modeling, and reactive transport modeling.

Bryan’s work at PNNL includes developing numerical models to evaluate the transport and fate of contaminants of concern at the Hanford Site for different remediation alternatives and investigating the pore-scale flow physics and biogeochemical reactions in scenarios such as soils and hyporheic flow at the river-sediment interface. He is a major developer of the PNNL in-house code eSTOMP (exascale Subsurface Transport Over Multiple Phases) and a contributor to PFLOTRAN development. Bryan organized and chaired a technical session of the 2023 RemPlex (Center for the Remediation of Complex Sites) global summit at Richland, WA, with colleagues.

Before joining PNNL in 2019, Bryan received his PhD in mechanical engineering from Oregon State University. Besides, he conducted a PhD internship at the National Energy and Technology Laboratory (NETL) at Albany, OR, focusing on identifying potential mechanisms for the material erosion observed in the supercritical CO2 power cycle systems. Bryan has also participated in the summer program of the Center for Turbulence Research (CTR) at Stanford University as a visiting researcher in both 2016 and 2018. 

• Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD)
• Porous Media
• Subsurface Flow and Transport Modeling
• Multiscale Modeling and Upscaling
• Turbulence and Turbulence Modeling (e.g., DNS/LES/RANS)
• Multiphase Flow Modeling
• Reactive Transport Modeling

• Doctor of Philosophy, Mechanical Engineering, Oregon State University
• Master of Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Oregon State University
• Bachelor of Engineering, Engineering, University of Shanghai for Science and Technology

• American Physical Society
• American Geophysical Union
• American Chemical Society
• American Society of Mechanical Engineers

• 2023 Outstanding Performance Award (OPA), Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
• 2023 Nominee of Early Career Researcher Of The Year (OTY), Earth System Science Division, EED, PNNL

2024

• He, X., M. Rockhold, V. Freedman, Y. Fang, A. Lawter, R. D. Mackley, and N. Qafoku. 2024. “Radioiodine sorption and transport in Hanford sediments.” ACS Earth and Space Chemistry, 8(2):323-334. https://pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021/acsearthspacechem.3c00291 (Cover feature)

2023

• Karra, S. K., S. V. Apte, X. He, and T. D. Scheibe. 2023. “Pore-resolved investigation of turbulent open channel flow over a randomly packed permeable sediment bed.” Journal of Fluid Mechanics, 971:A23, 2023. doi:10.1017/jfm.2023.636 11

2022

• Bao, J., Y. Chen, Y. Fang, X. Song, W.A. Perkins, Z. Duan, and P. Shuai, et al. 2022. "Modeling framework for evaluating the impacts of hydrodynamic pressure on hydrologic exchange fluxes and residence time for a large-scale river section over a long-term period." Environmental Modelling & Software 148(2022):105277. PNNL-SA-152147. doi:10.1016/j.envsoft.2021.105277
• Chen, Y., J. Bao, Y. Fang, W. A. Perkins, H. Ren, X. Song, and Z. Duan, et al. 2022. "Modeling of streamflow in a 30 km long reach spanning 5 years using OpenFOAM 5.x." Geoscientific Model Development 15(7):2917-2947. PNNL-SA-151719. doi:10.5194/gmd-15-2917-2022
• Apte, S., T. Oujia, K. Matsuda, B. Kadoch, X. He, and K. Schneider. 2022. “Clustering of inertial particles in turbulent flow through a porous unit cell.” Journal of Fluid Mechanics, 2022, 937.
• Karra, S., S. V. Apte, X. He, and T. D. Scheibe. 2022. "Particle resolved DNS study of turbulence effects on hyporheic mixing in randomly packed sediment beds." In 12th International Symposium on Turbulence and Shear Flow Phenomena (TSFP 2022), July 19-22, 2022, Osaka, Japan, Virtual. Danbury, Connecticut:Begell House, Inc. PNNL-SA-173463.

2021

• He, X., S. V. Apte, S. Karra, and O. N. Dogan. 2021. "A LES study of secondary motion and wall shear stresses in a pipe bend." Physics of Fluids 33(11):Art. No. 115102. PNNL-SA-165081. doi:10.1063/5.0065338

2020

• Wood, B. D., X. He, and S. Apte. 2020. “Modeling turbulent flows in porous media.” Annual Reviews of Fluid Mechanics, 52(2020):171-203.

2019

• He, X., S. Apte, J. Finn, and B. Wood. 2019. “Characteristics of turbulence in a face centered porous unit cell.” Journal of Fluid Mechanics, 2019;873:608-645. doi:10.1017/jfm.2019.403.

2018

• He, X., S. Apte, K. Schneider, and B. Kadoch. 2018. “Langrangian multiscale angular statistics of turbulent flow in a face centered cubic turbulent flow.” Physics Review Fluids, 3 084501, 2018
• He, X., S. Karra, P. Pakseresht, S. Apte, and S. Elghobashi. 2018. “Effect of heated-air blanket on the dispersion of squames.” International Journal for Numerical Methods in Biomedical Engineering, 2018 Jan 9. doi:10.1002/cnm.2960.