Research at CeFPac

The center has two main thrusts: (i) Aerodynamics of aerial, ground and underwater vehicles, (ii) wind energy (smart wind turbine blades, and buildings integrated wind).

CeFPaC’s primary research areas include:

Flow Physics: 2-D, 3-D, and unsteady flows
Flow Control: Fundamental and applied experimental, numerical and theoretical investigations of flow control in macro and micro systems
Actuators: Design, fabrication, optimization, and modeling of actuators for flow control
Flow Sensing: Flow sensors and controls to enable autonomous systems

Current Projects

Active/Passive Flow Control for Vehicle Aerodynamic Drag Reduction

The main contributor to the drag on motor vehicles is pressure drag, which heavily influences the fuel economy of the vehicle as well. The pressure drag forms due to the bluff-body type shape of sport utility vehicles (SUV) which creates an adverse pressure gradient at the rear of the vehicle. Other key areas that highly contribute to the drag on SUVs are around the wheels and the underbody, including the front and rear bumper. These specific locations around the vehicle will be the focus for study during this research.

Control of Reversed Flow in Helicopter Rotors

In high speed rotorcraft applications, a large section of the retreating blade undergoes reverse flow due to a high advance ratio. Flow separation at the sharp aerodynamic leading edge during reverse flow (geometric trailing edge) leads to negative lift, pitching moment, and drag penalties. The kinematics of a rotor blade leads to a dynamic stall in reverse flow, which further accentuates the problem by causing unsteady loading. These problems have restricted the maximum forward speed of rotorcrafts to ~250 kts.

Flow Control for Improved Tailless Vehicle Aerodynamics During Takeoff and Landing via Leading-Edge Vortex Manipulation

Fifth-Generation fighters such as the F-22 and F-35 favor chine-shaped forebodies which help reduce their Radar Cross-Section. The chine produces strong forebody vortices, which interact with the wing vortices. However, in certain conditions the interaction can produce asymmetric vortex breakdown, non-linear moments and roll departure. Future fighter aircraft will have this issue compounded as, to further reduce their RCS, future-generation fighter aircraft are projected to be tailless, sacrificing lateral control authority.

Flow Physics and Control of Three-Dimensional Separation on Swept Wings

Separation is an adverse aerodynamic phenomenon resulting in loss of aerodynamic performance. Previous studies on separation have mainly dealt with a two-dimensional analysis due to the assumption that the third dimension was negligible or that it was too complicated to analyze, leading to an incomplete analysis. Literature has indicated however, that this is insufficient in understanding separation and needs to be studied as such as spanwise instabilities have been shown to play a major role in the flow field and physics.

Generation and Control of Large-Scale Motions for Boundary Layer Reenergization

This project is part of a collaboration with researchers at the University of Texas at Austin ( David Goldstein , Saikishan Suryanarayanan and Efstathios Bakolas ) to reenergize boundary layers using naturally occurring coherent structures, or large-scale motions (LSMs). These LSMs are modelled as a train of hairpin vortices.

Mechanism for Active Camber Morphing for Helicopter Rotor Blades in Reverse Flow

This project is a collaboration with RPI's Center for Mobility with Vertical Lift (MOVE) with contributions from Dr. Etana Ferede. In high speed rotorcraft applications, a large section of the retreating blade undergoes reverse flow due to a high advance ratio. Flow separation at the sharp aerodynamic leading edge during reverse flow (geometric trailing edge) leads to negative lift, pitching moment, and drag penalties.

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School of Engineering

Center for Flow Physics and Control

Research at CeFPac

Current Projects