Related papers: Bluff body drag manipulation using pulsed jets and…
The transonic flight regime is often dominated by transonic buffet, a highly unsteady and complex shock-wave/boundary-layer interaction involving major parts of the flow field. The phenomenon is associated with a large-amplitude periodic…
We present a deep reinforcement learning approach to a classical problem in fluid dynamics, i.e., the reduction of the drag of a bluff body. We cast the problem as a discrete-time control with continuous action space: at each time step, an…
Periodically forced, oscillatory fluid flows have been the focus of intense research for decades due to their richness as a nonlinear dynamical system and their relevance to applications in transportation, aeronautics, and energy…
Active flow control for drag reduction with reinforcement learning (RL) is performed in the wake of a 2D square bluff body at laminar regimes with vortex shedding. Controllers parameterised by neural networks are trained to drive two…
Aerodynamic drag on flat-backed vehicles like vans and trucks is dominated by a low-pressure wake, whose control is critical for reducing fuel consumption. This paper presents an experimental study at $Re_W\approx 78,300$ on active flow…
We reveal the effects of sweep on the wake dynamics around NACA 0015 wings at high angles of attack using direct numerical simulations and resolvent analysis. The influence of sweep on the wake dynamics is considered for sweep angles from…
Base pressure control is often employed on drag reduction design, but the interaction of the jet with the base region flow topology can generate undesired or uncontrolled flow configurations. The ejected flow can drive pressure bifurcations…
Turbulence is omnipresent in the atmosphere and a long-standing scientific conundrum that makes flight complex. This complexity is little understood; surprisingly, when turbulence arises, air vehicles struggle while birds seem to thrive.…
This work studies the effects of skin-friction drag reduction in a turbulent flow over a curved wall, with a view to understanding the relationship between the reduction of friction and changes to the total aerodynamic drag. Direct…
In this study, we investigate the flow around a canonical blunt body, specifically a D-shaped body of width $D$, in a closed water channel. Our goal is to explore near-wake flow modifications when a series of rigid and flexible plates…
Flexible structures in an incoming perpendicular flow typically undergo elastic reconfiguration that reduces drag; however, at higher velocities, they are prone to dynamical instabilities that entail complex wake dynamics and fluctuating…
This study presents a novel spatially disrupted flow control system inspired by the covert feathers on bird wings. The system is a passive flow control system consisting of multiple feather-inspired flaps that dynamically interact with the…
We present a steady jet flow-based flow control of flexible membrane wings for an adaptive and efficient motion of bat-inspired drones in complex flight environments. A body-fitted variational computational aeroelastic framework is adopted…
This study investigates the hydrodynamic drag force on side-by-side flexible blades in a uniform steady current through experimental and theoretical approaches. Four different blade mimics were arranged in side-by-side bunches and tested in…
The impact of turbulent fluctuations on the forces exerted by a fluid on a towed spherical particle is investigated by means of high-resolution direct numerical simulations. The measurements are carried out using a novel scheme to integrate…
Flow control for turbulent skin-friction drag reduction is applied to a transonic airfoil to improve its aerodynamic performance. The study is based on direct numerical simulations (with up to 1.8 billions cells) of the compressible…
We study coherent structures in subsonic turbulent jets subject to a flight stream. A thorough characterisation of the effects of a flight stream on the turbulent field was recently performed by Maia et al. (2023) and fluctuation energy…
Inspired by the wake-surfing nature of animals, this study aims to understand the aerodynamic force variation on a wing surfing in an unsteady 2-D wake. Wind tunnel experiments were conducted using Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV) and force…
Hummingbirds and insects achieve outstanding flight performance by adapting their flapping motion to the flight requirements. Their wing kinematics can change from smooth flapping to highly dynamic waveforms, generating unsteady aerodynamic…
This experimental study aims to investigate the effect of different base blowing configurations on the aerodynamics of a squareback Ahmed body. Four different slot configurations through which air is injected were studied. Each…