Intellectual Merits: The interaction of a flowing fluid and a deformable structure or solid is one of the richest sources of mathematical challenges and fundamental physical phenomena with important applications to engineering and technology including energy harvesting and power generation. The physical phenomena of interest range from blood flows in arteries, to airflow over an oscillating tongue that can lead to clinical dangerous and potentially fatal oscillations, to flow over flexible long span bridges and tall buildings, to flow over and around flight vehicles over a wide range of scales from micro air vehicles to modern passenger airliners, to fluid-structural systems whose limit cycles may be a source of energy harvesting and power generation. It is this last application that motivates much of the proposed work. While in many applications the concern is that the limit cycle oscillations will damage the mechanical integrity of the fluid/structural system, in the energy harvesting and power generation application these oscillations will be both novel and beneficial. The methods that have been proposed to better understand and exploit these phenomena include theoretical models of high sophistication including the continuum models of the fluid and the structure. While analytical solutions continue to be sought and found, computational models that tax the resources of the most powerful computers also play an important role, as do scale model experiments based upon a sound fundamental analysis and understanding of the first principles of the relevant continuum models. Indeed, it is by exploiting the complementary strengths of each approach theoretical modeling, computational modeling, and experimental scale models that the deepest and richest insights can be obtained.
Broader Impact: This proposal brings together senior investigators from three major research institutions covering a wide range of intellectual experience from modern mathematics to rigorously based computational models to multidisciplinary experiments to address fluid-structure interaction phenomena. This research will also provide an opportunity for graduate students and post-doctoral visitors to participate and learn in this rich environment.
