Associate Professor
Francisco Cruz-Mazo
f.cruz[at]upm[dot]es / C203 office
E.T.S. Ingeniería y Diseño Industrial
Universidad Politécnica de Madrid
Ronda de Valencia 3,
28012 Madrid, Spain
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Francisco Cruz-Mazo is currently an Associate Professor at Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM), where he teaches fluid mechanics courses and researches both theoretically and experimentally on the fluid dynamics of interfacial flows at the micro- and nanoscale in his Complex Fluids Lab in the Department of Mechanical, Chemical, and Industrial Design Engineering at ETSIDI. His fundamental research is goal-oriented to facilitate the development of innovative solutions to address pressing challenges in various fields, for instance, in hydrogen technologies as a Thermal Energy for Sustainability (TE4S) group member, and also in bio-sample delivery, soft robotics, and remote sensing technologies, among many others. The Complex Fluids Lab is always open to exploring opportunities for collaboration. Just reach out!
Short bio - Cruz-Mazo completed a PhD in Fluid Mechanics with the group of Physics of Fluids and Microfluidics at the University of Sevilla (Spain) and with research stays in the Coherent Imaging Group at DESY (Germany). After being awarded a Marie-Curie Individual Fellowship, he worked as a Postdoc in the Complex Fluids Group at Princeton University (USA), where he broadened his research interests to fluid singularities and pinch-off phenomena.
Research
"Each piece, or part, of the whole nature is always merely an approximation to the complete truth, or the complete truth so far as we know it. In fact, everything we know is only some kind of approximation because we know that we do not know all the laws as yet"
-- Richard P. Feynman
Cruz-Mazo & Stone (2022) Phys. Rev. Fluids 7, L012201
Basic research in interfacial fluid micro/nano flows
A fluid-fluid interface cannot be considered infinitely narrow within fluid fragmentation. In particular, a new set of self-similar equations is obtained and resolved for the jet pinching-off as the finite-thickness of the interface becomes comparable to the characteristic radial size.
Energy and sustainability
METAHL-BUBS is a National Research Grant (PID2023-151272OA-I00) that aims to research the "Modeling and Experimental Techniques for Advanced Heating in Liquid-metal BUBble Systems". Some of the applications of this fundamental research on micro/nano flows include the development of novel methods for hydrogen technologies.
Electrohydrodynamic liquid ejecta
A novel way to stabilize steady micro/nano liquid jets from Taylor cones and co-flowing gas streams. We theoretically study this configuration's dripping-jetting transition through a global stability analysis as a function of the governing parameters involved and derive two coupled scaling laws that predict both the minimum jet diameter and its maximum velocity.
Holmes et al. (2022) Nature Commun. 13, 4708
Biotechnology
Efficient transport of bio-substances with ultra-fast sub-micron-sized liquid jets is a critical challenge in various applications, including structural biology with SFX-XFEL and other key applications that will benefit from ongoing cutting-edge endeavors where micro/nanofluidics can be crucial to overcome current technological limitations.
Join our Complex Fluids LAB
Feel free to reach out and explore the available opportunities for a PhD, a postdoc, a research stay, or a BSc/MSc thesis (TFG/TFM) with Cruz-Mazo. Yearly, there are excellent calls to apply (f.cruz[at]upm[dot]es).
Teaching
"Education is not the learning of facts, but the training of the mind to think"
-- Albert Einstein
Fluid Mechanics
BSc in Chemical Engineering and BSc in Electronics Engineering ETSIDI - UPM
In this course, we study the fundamentals of fluid mechanics, engineering applications and examples of chemical processes or control systems of particular interests for both degrees
Finite-Element Based Simulation Model for Fluid Dynamics
Course offered to any student of ETSIDI - UPM and International Semester
In this course, we study computational fluid dynamics methods to address practical engineering problems involving fluids and flows in chemical, mechanical, electronics, electrical, and industrial design engineering processes.
Gallery & Latest news
"It is not living that matters but living rightly"
-- Sócrates
05/2024
Cruz-Mazo leaves both the leadership team of ETSIDI-UPM and the EESF project to focus his efforts on his ongoing research projects. Cruz-Mazo thanks the opportunity and appreciates the trust and understanding from both teams regarding this hard decision, leaving the door open for future involvement if needed.
04/2024
Cruz-Mazo officially begins to co-advise, together with Prof. Leo González (UPM), a PhD thesis about soft-robotics with fluids in collaboration with an R&D company.
03/2025
Cruz-Mazo gets a permanent academic position as an Associate Professor in Fluid Mechanics at UPM.
11/2024
Cruz-Mazo joins the Comunidad del Hidrógeno y Pilas de Combustible, a scientific community where UPM researchers collaborate on Hydrogen technologies.
07/2024
Cruz-Mazo is awarded a National Research Grant (Plan Nacional. Generación de Conocimiento) as a Principal Investigator of the METAHL-BUBS project.
06/2024
Cruz-Mazo joins the leadership team of ETSIDI - UPM to contribute to academic affairs and the organization of international courses, among others. Update: appointment as an Associate Director of Academic Affairs (since 10/2024)
02/2024
Cruz-Mazo joins The Engineering Education for a Sustainable Future (EESF) project.
05/2023
Cruz-Mazo joins Thermal Energy for Sustainability (TE4S), an interdisciplinary research group of UPM, where he contributes, as a member, with his fundamental micro/nanofluidics in topics related to Hydrogen technologies, among others.
02/2023
Cruz-Mazo joins ETSIDI at UPM as an Asst. Prof. in Fluid Mechanics.
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