Undergraduate Aerospace
Research
Exciting Fluid Dynamics (EFD)
The
Aircraft Wake Phenomenon
This is an important problem to the US Air Force, and the FAA, since it concerns flight safety, where the tip-vortex wake of one aircraft can be a hazard to other maneuvering aircraft. Our approach is both visual and exciting in that fluid motions can be very beautiful, as well as important from the standpoint of fundamental vortex instabilities and turbulence. We shall study the motion and instabilities of these tip vortices, involving their small and long wavelength instabilities, and their interaction with the ground. Please come to 144 Upson Hall, and see the posters showing these phenomena, as well as take a look on the Web site, where you will find animations. Come and visit us in 144 Upson Hall !
Shown below: an actual aircraft wake and velocity and vorticity fields taken from DPIV in our labs.
Facilities: We have built a
novel Computer-controlled XY Towing Tank, a 26-foot Water Channel and also a
Vortex Generator Facility, all of which will be used to visualize the trailing
vortex pair wakes of aircraft, and problems in Vortex-induced vibrations in a
set of projects suitable for bright MEng research ! This work
follows from several enjoyable projects over the last 3 years.
DPIV (Digital
Particle Image Velocimetry). Exciting development of this front-line technique is
needed as a part of the project. DPIV is
a modern technique which enables us to determine the velocity and vorticity fields in 2D slices of a fluid, using the motions
of neutrally-buoyant fluorescent particles.
It is part of our Fluid Image
Processing Center.
This
project will give the student exposure to research computational analysis,
design of a fluid mechanics experiment, the use of various flow visualization
techniques, photography, video and also fluid mechanics instrumentation in
challenging and important problems. The
tools gained by the student will be exceedingly useful to future work in fluid
mechanics and aerospace.
Contact: C.H.K. Williamson (cw26@cornell.edu)
Phone: 255-3838
LAB: 128-144 Upson
Hall – Please visit us! WEB SITE: http://www.mae.cornell.edu/fdrl
Top
The
Vortex-Induced Vibration Problem
We
shall study the phenomenon whereby bodies are induced to resonate due to the
forcing from wake vortex dynamics. We
shall employ the modern DPIV technique (see below) to study the vortex dynamics
modes that give rise to different branches of amplitude response to the fluid
forcing. We shall study to what extent
the phenomena discovered for simple paradigm systems extend to more complicated
arrangements - in particular we wish to explore where the concept of a critical
mass is applicable in vortex-induced vibration systems. If the system mass falls below a critical
value, then a resonance begins, and will persist at all flow speeds (to
infinity). This is a radical new
discovery, which has fundamental and practical significance, changing the way
we view resonance in such systems. Come
and visit us in 144 Upson Hall!!
Facilities: We have built a
novel Computer-controlled XY Towing Tank, a 26-foot Water Channel and also a
Vortex Generator Facility, all of which will be used to visualize the trailing
vortex pair wakes of aircraft, and problems in Vortex-induced vibrations in a
set of projects suitable for bright MEng research ! This work
follows from several enjoyable projects over the last 3 years.
DPIV (Digital
Particle Image Velocimetry). Exciting development of this front-line technique is
needed as a part of the project. DPIV is
a modern technique which enables us to determine the velocity and vorticity fields in 2D slices of a fluid, using the motions
of neutrally-buoyant fluorescent particles.
It is part of our Fluid Image
Processing Center.
This
project will give the student exposure to research computational analysis,
design of a fluid mechanics experiment, the use of various flow visualization
techniques, photography, video and also fluid mechanics instrumentation in
challenging and important problems. The
tools gained by the student will be exceedingly useful to future work in fluid
mechanics and aerospace.
Contact: C.H.K. Williamson (cw26@cornell.edu)
Phone: 255-3838
LAB: 128-144 Upson
Hall – Please visit us! WEB SITE: http://www.mae.cornell.edu/fdrl