Introduction

👋 Welcome to my website!

I’m Néstor V. Balcázar-Arciniega, Lecturer & Researcher at the Heat and Mass Transfer Technological Center (CTTC) - Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya – BarcelonaTech (UPC), specializing in computational fluid dynamics (CFD), multiphase flows, fluid mechanics, and heat and mass transfer.

My research focuses on the development of numerical and computational methods for fluid dynamics and transport phenomena, including Direct Numerical Simulation (DNS) of gas–liquid systems, variable surface tension (thermocapillarity, surfactants), phase change (boiling, evaporation, condensation), and bubbly flows. I develop high-performance CFD solvers (C++/MPI) in the framework of unstructured meshes and finite-volume approach, including the Unstructured Conservative Level-Set (UCLS), Coupled VoF-LS, and Multi-Marker UCLS methods.

📝 Peer review & scientific service: I regularly serve as a reviewer for international journals in my field, e.g., Int. J. Multiph. Flow, J. Comput. Phys., Chem. Eng. J., Chem. Eng. Sci., Int. J. Heat Mass Transf., Int. J. Heat Fluid Flow, Comput. Fluids, among others, and evaluate scientific projects, e.g. PRF-ACS.

🎓 Teaching and mentoring: At UPC, I teach undergraduate and master's courses such as Heat and Mass transfer, Numerical Methods in Energy Engineering, Gas Dynamics & Heat and Mass Transfer, Advanced Heat and Mass Transfer, Advanced Heat Transfer, Energy Alternatives (fuel cells). Previously, I taught Thermodynamics at UNED (Spain) and, Fluid Mechanics, Heat Transfer, and Chemical Reactor Engineering at UTPL (Ecuador). 

💬 Let’s collaborate
I'm open to collaborations in numerical and computational methods for advanced CFD, multiphase flow, fluid dynamics, heat and mass transfer, high-performance computing (C++ / MPI), and their applications in energy and chemical process engineering, hydraulics engineering, or mechanical engineering.
Whether you're interested in joint research, Ph.D. supervision, or industry-academia partnerships, I’d be happy to connect.

📩 Email: nestor.balcazar@upc.edu

🔬 Some metrics:

📝 50 SCOPUS-indexed publications (57% as first author, 17 in Q1 journals, 5 in first decile JCR)

📈 h-index: 16 | FWCI: 1.844 (SCOPUS, april 2025)

🎓 4 Ph.D. theses supervised (2 industrial doctorates) at the UPC.

🌍 35+ international conference presentations, e.g., DLES, ETMM, EUROTHERM, ERCOFTAC, ECCOMAS, PRACE, ICCS.