Emeritus Professor
- Stanford University (PhD 1972)
- Energy and Fluids
Contact Information
- Email: forster@u.washington.edu
- Website: http://faculty.washington.edu/forster
- Regular Mail
- University of Washington
- Dept. of Mechanical Engineering
- Campus Box 352600
- Seattle, WA 98195-2600
- Priority Mail
- University of Washington
- Mechanical Engineering Building, Room 132
- Seattle, WA 98195-2600
Biography
Professor Forster retired in June 2006. His teaching areas included fluid mechanics, heat transfer, acoustics and engineering mathematics. His research was primarily in the applications of engineering mechanics to medicine and biology, particularly in the area of fluid mechanics and acoustics.
Most recent research included micro-fluid mechanics applications in fluid pumping/transport for micro-electronic cooling and biochemical sensing in micro-devices. Other research has included acoustic propagation in biological media, including experimental and numerical studies directed toward a basic understanding of the interaction of acoustical energy with biological tissue, in particular connective tissue and collagen; the development of instrumentation for clinical applications of acoustic interrogation techniques; and development of acoustic techniques for monitoring wound healing.
Other prior research areas in which Professor Forster has contributed are wave propagation in the cardiovascular system, ultrasonic Doppler techniques for cardiovascular fluid dynamics measurements including turbulence, analysis of cardiac arrhythmia through spectral analysis, ultrasonic Doppler measurements in the paper products industry, mathematical modeling of the oscillometric blood pressure measurement technique, experimental fluid mechanics of flow separation and vortex shedding in arteriosclerotic blood vessels, characterization of the chemical constituents of gallstones from acoustic attenuation measurements, and acoustic quantification of the severity of thermal energy.