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| Project Title | Stealth Aerodynamics |
| Summary | Owls are so quiet that a human would not hear one flying past their ear! Currently, it is believed that the owlâs astounding acoustic stealth relates to the poroelastic properties of its wings, as plumage and feathers can be considered an intricate net of fibers equivalent to an elastic and porous surface. Although this link is well accepted, the physics behind such correlations are poorly quantified and understood. Our goal is to quantitatively characterize the poroelastic flow-acoustic mechanisms underlying silent locomotion through fluids via a combination of state-of-the-art flow-structure interaction computations, acoustic simulations and evolutionary optimization techniques. These insights will enable us to design for sound by leveraging morphology, elasticity and porosity. This effort cuts across many areas of high current importance: aviation, drones, acoustic flyers detection, and quality of life in a quiet environment. |
| Job Description | We will consider 2D heaving and pitching, poroelastic wings in an incompressible flow. We will numerically âevolveâ the wing design in order to minimize its sound footprint. By progressively considering more free design parameters (stiffness, porosity, morphology), we will identify a collection of optimal solutions. We will analyze these solutions to understand the mechanisms at play and to dissect the relative role of stiffness, porosity and shape in relation to sound suppression. |
| Use of Blue Waters | Each optimization campaign may entail hundreds designs evaluations, each one of them corresponding to a full flow acoustic numerical simulation. This renders the optimization process very computationally intensive, so that only access to a supercomputing architecture such as Blue Waters can enable this type of study. |
| Conditions/Qualifications | - Experience in incompressible fluid mechanics and acoustic analogies - C++ and python programming skills - Experience with OpenFOAM |
| Start Date | 05/31/2018 |
| End Date | 05/31/2019 |
| Location | Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, mattiaLab, MechSE-NCSA, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign |
| Interns | Greg Stroot
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