MAE Seminar: Datta Gaitonde

Analysis of Multi-scale Nonlinear Fluid Dynamics using Scale-Resolving Simulations

Flowfields of aerospace interest display a rich variety of features, many of which enforce performance limitations.  Among the main nonlinear phenomena are unsteady separated regions, vortical structures, acoustic and shock waves and their interactions. Consequences include high aerothermodynamic loads such as drag and heat transfer, thrust generation, unsteadiness impacting maneuverability and potential for structural response.  A comprehensive understanding can guide design evolution or flow control.  Recently simulated spatio-temporally resolved flowfields in the speaker’s group address a range of circumstances including cargo and slender aircraft wakes, weapons bays, vertical take-off and landing, hypersonic transition and scramjet isolator dynamics among others.  The diversity of these problems is leveraged in this talk to discuss various post-processing strategies that exploit an efficient combination of advanced statistical methods and system identification techniques.   Generally classified into data-driven (agnostic of the underlying governing equations) or operator-aware (specific to the domain, in this case computational fluid dynamics), these methods highlight the connection between fine-scale and dominant features.  Specific benefits to be discussed include reduced order modeling,  guidance for control, cause and effect in feedback loops, and non-stationary data processing.  Judicious sifting of scale-resolved data with physics-based techniques prior to the application of data-driven methods is shown to be particularly effective in discerning flow features that are difficult, if not impossible, with more naïve traditional approaches.

Dr. Datta V. Gaitonde currently holds the John Glenn Chair and is a designated Ohio Research Scholar in the Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Department of The Ohio State University, where he also serves as Associate Chair for Graduate Studies. In his research, Dr. Gaitonde uses advanced computational techniques to study various effects of turbulence, and their control, in shock/boundary layer interactions, low and high-speed propulsion systems, stall, jet noise, weapons bays and bluff body flowfields.  He is a Fellow of the AIAA, AFRL and ASME.