MMAE Seminar - Unexpected Behavior in the Linear Response of Turbulent Flow past a Wavy Bottom

Professor Paolo Luchini from Università di Salerno, Italy will visit IIT on November 11th, 2014 to present a seminar "Unexpected Behavior in the Linear Response of Turbulent Flow past a Wavy Bottom."

Abstract

The stress exerted by turbulent flow over a wavy bottom plays an essential role in the analysis of sediment transport by rivers, open channels, and tides. Using a newly developed immersed-boundary code, a campaign of direct numerical simulations has been conducted to explore the linear response of the wall shear stress to a slow sinusoidal undulation of the channel wall. The results exhibit interesting behavior at unexpectedly large wavelengths and confirm some previous results of Luchini & Russo that cast doubts about the applicability of turbulence models to similar problems.

Biography

Paolo Luchini graduated in 1980 from Università di Napoli, Italy, started his career there, and became a full professor of fluid dynamics at Politecnico di Milano in 1994 and Università di Salerno in 2000. He is an associate Editor of the European Journal of Mechanics B/Fluids since 1999, a Fellow of the American Physical Society since 2009 and currently President of the Italian Association of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics. His research interests have spanned both fluid mechanics and electrodynamics, with a wide range of analytical and numerical approaches. Presently he concentrates on the generation and receptivity of flow instabilities and on the statistics and control of near-wall turbulence.

Learn more about Paolo Luchini here