Optimization in Fluid Mechanics

Completed

Energy Efficiency(Transport)
Fossil Fuels: Oil Gas and Coal(Oil and Gas, Refining, transport and storage of oil and gas)
Energy Efficiency(Industry)

Basic and strategic applied research

ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY (Mechanical, Aeronautical and Manufacturing Engineering)

Not Cross-cutting

Professor R Kerswell
Applied Maths and Theoretical Physics
University of Cambridge

Standard

EPSRC

01 September 2017

31 March 2020

31 months

£261,160

Mathematical sciences

East of England

NC : Maths

Professor R Kerswell, Applied Maths and Theoretical Physics, University of Cambridge

Project Contact, Institute of Science and Technology (IST Austria), Austria
Project Contact, Argyll College
Project Contact, University of Cambridge

This project aims to realise the full potential of optimisation as a theoretical tool to study fluid mechanics motivated by our need to better understand and control flows around us. As an exemplar, the drag experienced by vehicles as they move through either air or water is a huge consumer of energy and source of carbon emissions which the UK urgently needs to reduce. In the past, optimisation has generally only been used with simplified constraints such as the linearised Navier-Stokes equations to keep problems tractable. Recently, however, two breakthroughs now strongly suggest that the solutions to more sophisticated optimisation problems can be successfully computed and a recent experiment highlights what may be achieved using clever geometry design.This project will seek to exploit these exciting advances by developing new optimisation-based approaches to treat three key problems in fluid mechanics: 1) how to systematically search for new nonlinear flow solutions to the governing Navier-Stokes equations; 2) how to manipulate nonlinear stability via boundary geometry to design more energy-efficient fluid flows in pipelines; and 3) how to calculate the best rigorous upper estimates of energy consumption (or drag) in fully turbulent shear and convective flows.

01/02/19