Proposal No. CTS-0521633 Principal Investigator: J.W. Naughton, University of Wyoming
This grant is to purchase a three-component, state-of-the-art Laser Doppler Anemometry (LDA). An entire system will be purchased including a laser, beam-separation optics, transceivers, photo-detectors, signal-processing electronics and accessories. This system will replace an aging system that is no longer supported since another company purchased the original manufacturer. The new 3-D LDA system will be used in a large number of fluid mechanics research projects with diverse and broad scientific interests. These projects include fundamental turbulent flow studies, sensors and actuator development, flow control system investigations, and the assessment of new wind energy concepts. This LDA system will not only provide better physical understanding of these flows, but will also allow the researchers to provide validation data and boundary conditions for simulations of these flows by computational colleagues. This equipment will be an important addition to the growing fluid dynamics faculty in the Mathematics and Mechanical Engineering Departments at the University of Wyoming. The instrumentation will be employed in an innovative graduate course in experimental fluid dynamics. Thus, the grant will facilitate the training of graduate and undergraduate students at the University of Wyoming in an interdisciplinary field. In addition, the demonstration of the LDA system to high school students will be used to attract young talents into science and engineering. The new equipment, together with existing particle image velocimetry and hot-wire anemometry systems, will be valuable for graduate student training. The enhanced research capabilities this system offers will help to attract new faculty candidates and will also yield additional research opportunities and further collaborations among the existing group of researchers.
