Focus Research Areas

Research is performed in all areas of fluid dynamics, from classical to modern. Though there is a group specialty in aerospace engineering fluid dynamics, particular aerodynamics and propulsion, research is commonly performed in a wide range of industrial fluid mechanics problems from pumping systems to bio-fluid flow.

Below is a list of some areas of interest to the members of the fluid dynamics group (not necessarily up to date).

• Computational Fluid Dynamics
  Turbulence modeling and simulation employing unaveraged, additive decompositions of governing equations * Turbulence-radiation and turbulence-chemical kinetics interactions * Modeling of large- and small-scale fires (e.g., forest fires and room fires) * Flow and heat transfer in internal air-cooling circuits of gas turbine blades * Simulation of paint particle trajectories during spray painting of vehicles on automotive assembly lines * Simulation of fluid (aqueous humor) flow in the human eye, and its effects on onset of glaucoma * Application of CFD methods to experimental data reduction
• Computational Numerical Analysis
  Filtering techniques to treat coarse-grid aliasing effects in computations involving advection-diffusion equations * Parallelization of numerical methods for partial differential equations * Development of multi-dimensional nonlinear filters for shock capturing
• Nonlinear Dynamical Systems
  Applications to Navier-Stokes turbulence and theory of additive turbulent decomposition (ATD) * Construction of discrete dynamical systems models of turbulence phenomena * Analysis of eye movement time series utilizing techniques from dynamical systems theory in effort to provide non-intrusive methods for visual dysfunction diagnoses. *
• Experimental Methods
  Quantitative flow visualization using reflective flakes * Application of digital imaging techniques to full field measurements
• Vortex and Aero Dynamics
  Generation and evolution of trailing vortex wakes (see Vortex sheet roll-up of a rectangular wing) * Interaction of vortex filaments * Breakdown of vortices
• Turbulence
  Structure of low-Reynolds number turbulence and generation of homogeneous and isotropic fields * Effect of freestream turbulence on wake evolution