Abstract
Fluid and structural systems and their possible interaction have a rich array of behavior being susceptible to instabilities and thus the generation of limit cycle oscillations and on occasion chaotic response. In this talk the speaker will touch on several example including solar sails, high performance aircraft and aerodynamic decelerators from space into planetary atmospheres. Much of the talk will be devoted to the large and small scale oscillations that may appear in fluid flows and thus excite structural motion. The large scale motions include buffet in aircraft and non-synchronous vibration in jet engines, the classic case being the Von Karman vortex street. The small scale motions have as their most well-known example the transition from laminar to turbulent flow. In all of the above cases a combination of theory, computation and experiment is used to understand the nonlinear dynamics of such systems.
About the speaker
Prof Earl H. Dowell received his DSc from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1964. Before going to Duke University as Dean of the School of Engineering, serving from 1983 to 1999, he was faculty at MIT and Princeton University. He has also worked with the Boeing Company. He is currently William Holland Hall Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Duke University.
Prof Dowell’s research ranges over the topics of aeroelasticity, nonsteady aerodynamics, nonlinear dynamics and structures. In addition to being author of over three hundred research articles, he is the author or co-author of four books, Aeroelasticity of Plates and Shells, A Modern Course in Aeroelasticity, Studies in Nonlinear Aeroelasticity and Dynamics of Very High Dimensional Systems. His teaching spans the disciplines of acoustics, aerodynamics, dynamics and structures. He is a consultant to government, industry and universities in science and technology policy and engineering education as well as on the topics of his research.
Prof Dowell is a Member of the US National Academy of Engineering, an Honorary Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) and a Fellow of the American Academy of Mechanics and the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME). He received numerous awards including the AIAA’s Structure, Structural Dynamics and Materials Award and the Crichlow Trust Prize, the ASME’s Spirit of St. Louis Medal, the Den Hartog Award and Lyapunov Medal, and also the Daniel Guggenheim Medal awarded jointly by AIAA, ASME, the Society of Automotive Engineers and the American Helicopter Society.
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