[Amath-seminars] Special Seminar: Peter Baddoo, MIT

[J. Nathan Kutz]

Hi All

Peter Baddoo from MIT will be visiting UW for a couple of weeks and will give a seminar on Friday, August 12th at 230pm (ECE 303)


Speaker:  Peter Baddoo, MIT

Title: Understanding interacting airfoils: complex analysis, asymptotics, and dynamics

Abstract: When two or more airfoils move together, their interactions significantly affect the characteristics of the surrounding fluid. We develop a mathematical theory for these interactions using conformal maps, multiply-connected function theory, and modified Schwarz problems. Via use of the transcendental Schottky–Klein prime function, our theory is valid for any connectivity (any number of airfoils). Accordingly, our approach is very general and permits many airfoil motions (pitching, heaving, undulatory) and configurations (tandem, in-line, ground effect). We focus on the doubly-connected case where there are two interacting swimmers and find that our theory yields excellent agreement with experimental data. We also derive an asymptotic solution that captures the salient features of the prime function solution, along with a reduced-order dynamical system that explains the airfoils’ trajectories.